


earth to coma kid

by spacepuck



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Angst, Family Fluff, Mental Illness, PTSD, Post-Sburb, Sadstuck, also this is non-canon bro but some things will be canon, its very family based my dudes if you couldn't tell, tags will be updated as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-06-02 11:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6564649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/spacepuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave is returned to Bro after three years of absence, he's unsure how to act -- a short-lived coma has left him questioning how much of the past three years was reality. Bro, on the other hand, has been kept in the dark about his brother's whereabouts -- he only knows that the man behind it all has made their lives hell for long enough. </p>
<p>Post-Sburb AU. Multiple canon elements altered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dave: Rise and Shine

**Author's Note:**

> wake up coma kid. 
> 
> anyways this is my first fanfic in a good handful of years. has my writing gotten better? maybe. hope you guys enjoy more sadstuck B)

Everything in the dark room, and the darkness itself, lurches towards you. 

The dark wall across from you inches nearer in a hazy lope, the faces on the walls staring you down. You shut your eyes and open them again, and the lurching restarts, starting from afar again. Ben Stiller’s eyes still staring you down, coming closer, smiling in a way that makes you believe he has something to tell you.

“Wake up,” you think he’ll say. But he doesn’t say a word. You blink again, and he’s far off again. 

The realization that you’re home seeps into your skin. Eventually, it gets under your bones. 

_You’re home._

home???

You jolt up suddenly, and the walls shift around you in a dark dizzy haze. You feel a pinch at your arms, and you slap at them roughly.

_Bugs, bugs, bugs, you’re home, you’re home, you’re home._

The words chant themselves in circles around you, and you grasp the plastic tubes running from your arms to an indistinguishable somewhere in the dark. 

_Bugs bugs bugs bugs._

You tug at them, and the _bugs bugs bugs_ bite again, then fall away from your skin. 

You’re home. 

Home?

You open your mouth and let out a miserable, round “fuck”. From the corner of your eye you spot a floating red blotch in the midst of the dark, and slowly, you sweep your head to look at it. 

They’re just dots. You stare at them a while longer, struggling to recall the symbols. The longer you stare at it, trying to decipher the shapes, the more they change. 

You eventually let out a shuddering, “Two thirty-six.” 

Just 2:36.

A brisk breeze tumbles over your skin, making you flinch as goosebumps flood your arms. Shakily, you adjust your legs, trying to swing them over the side of the bed, but the static numbness circles around your knees and travels down through the soles of your feet. Already you can feel the sweat pooling from your underarms into your 

shirt??? 

“Fuck.”

You sit on the edge of your bed, waiting for the static to dissipate from deep inside your legs, until you mumble a low “two forty-seven” to yourself. You try to stand, but immediately fall back onto the bed against your hands. Reaching out, you wave a hand around until it lands on something sturdy, and you push yourself up again, leaning your weight into the 

table???

beside your bed. The numbness circles your hips and trickles down through your knees again, but you try to step forward anyway. You stop when the breeze hits you harder, directly this time, and you want to fucking collapse. 

So you step forward again, until your foot knocks into something metal, tinny, and the noise reverberates in your head and swims behind your eyes until you can feel tears dripping down the sides of your nose. 

You’ve gotta get out of here.

With your free hand, your rub yours eyes, dragging your forefinger and thumb along your lids until you’re pinching the bridge of your nose. The walls haven’t stopped lurching towards you – the eyes on the walls haven’t stopped gunning you down. 

“Fuck.”

Through the haze, you drag your hand across another table, knocking your knuckles into thick knobs and over rubbery cords. You hobble along beside it until it eventually ends. Waving your free hand around again, you find nothing else to lean on. Your knees are practically knocking against each other now. 

Unable to walk another step, you settle yourself on the ground. Absolutely drenched in sweat, you pull your knees up against your chest, shuddering as the breeze becomes steady and persistent. 

You realize that you’re going to have to crawl to find a way out.

As you get yourself situated on your knees, you hand brushes against _snakes snakes snakes_ cords. You feel the _snakes_ cords roll under your hands and legs as you crawl over them, and you eventually feel your hand knock into a 

wall???

It’s still shifting towards you, reaching out to grasp your eyes. You feel over it, afraid your hand will sink into it and never come back, but you feel a shift in smoothness instead. 

_I’m done I’m done I’m done_

But you’re not, and you reach up along the fold in the wall, and your hand knocks into a thick bulb. You grasp at it, and you try to pull yourself to your feet again. 

Door. It’s a fucking door. You know this one. 

Leaning against the wall beside it, you turn the knob, and at last the darkness seeps away. 

It takes a lot of slinking against the wall to reach the next room, where the darkness pulses in far off corners. The light behind you pools for a little farther, until it hits the belly of another door far ahead. 

You reach out to lean on the mass beside you, but your palm sinks around more dials and knobs. You jerk your hand back, and you quickly land in a sudden thump to the floor, on top of more _fucking snakes_ cords. 

Quickly, you crawl until the floor feels empty, sitting where the light still pools from the hall, and you realize that the air is thick and difficult to breathe in. You suck in air through your teeth, and it’s heavy and fills your chest. Too heavy. You try breathing in again, but your chest feels heavier and heavier, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’re sucking lava into your lungs and it’s solidifying, and the heaviness is creeping along your limbs and throat, metastasizing. 

Gasping for fresh air. Breathing in ash and pumice. Turning into a child of Pompeii.

You look up, trying to find the time through wobbly slick tears, but it’s dark outside of the light. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, seeping in thick air through your teeth, and you spot another small pattern of green dots floating in the dark. 

There’s a far-off thumping that clamps around your ears, but you squint at the dots, trying to form them into numbers. 

Three something. Three something. Three something. 

The thumping gets louder, and it’s just beyond the door, and you have to wipe your eyes with your dry hands over and over again while the noise tightens its vice around your skull. 

Three oh something, three oh something. 

A rustle. Something hitting the other side of the door, a jangling of metal, the knob jostling around without anyone touching it. You begin to crawl back slowly on your hands and heels, and the room closes and opens in the corners of your eyes as the door creaks open. 

You see an arm, and you push yourself back behind another mass

couch?????? who fucking knows

and bang your arm against its metal side. The pain sneaks from your elbow up to your shoulder and down to your wrist, grabbing you tightly.

“ _Fuck_.” 

You’re breathing in thick lava again, and you feel like you could throw up.

The noise across the room happens quickly. The door shuts, the rustling is all together and loud and then nothing. The footsteps are louder and faster, and they trail behind the being covered in light and thumping darkness in front of you. You can’t look at _him_ , and you’re quick to clamp your mouth with the heels of your palms, fingers straggling in front of your eyes. 

_Don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream_

And suddenly, all of the noise stops. You’re free-floating. 

“Dave?”

You peer at _him_ between your fingers. From behind your palms, you hiss a stringy, gargling,

“Fuck.”


	2. Him: Panic

You don’t, because this has become normal in the past few days. 

Dave is staring at the ceiling again, breathing evenly. He’s been doing this for hours, blinking slowly, returning his gaze to the same imaginary mark. You’re sitting on the edge of his bed, replacing the IV bags with fresh ones. As the liquid sloshes around in the bag, sinking between your fingers, you still wonder, in a paranoid space reserved deep inside your chest, if they’re trying to poison the kid or really help him. 

But they seem to be working – he’s not dead, anyway. He’s more responsive than he was five days ago. Brushes your hand away when you squeeze his shoulder, usually responds when you speak, despite it being detached two-word phrases. A part of you wants to believe that he’s not moving on his own just to fuck with you, but it’s only wishful thinking.

You also don’t have much of a choice, because _not_ hooking up the stuff is just as bad as if it were poison. So you hook it up and continue to sit beside him, looking down at his blank stare. 

“Hey, kid.”

“Hmm,” he responds, glancing over quickly to your general spot before going back to the ceiling.

“What’s your name?”

He pauses for a short while, before responding in a low and round, “Truck shit.”

“Wrong. Nice try though, bud,” you say to him, laughing a little, laughing sadly. You give a quick sweep over the short wisps of hair along his brow with the back of your fingers and tuck loose locks back into the hair-tie at the crown of his skull. You practically hadn't recognized him when he came back -- three years without a haircut left your brother with long, wavy locks brushing his shoulders, tangled dead ends getting caught in one another. You spend another moment fixing his messy bun of hair before getting up.

Your kid brother’s in a coma. A bona-fide, earthless trip into the dark void of the unconscious coma. 

As you settle on your couch in front of Tony Hawk’s sick still-frame benihana, you rest your hands against your stomach, rolling your head back. “Police Truck” thumps through the speakers, barely fighting against the stark silence of the apartment. You wonder if Tony Hawk actually likes Dead Kennedys. You also wonder how he isn’t dead yet. 

God, your legs won’t stop fidgeting. 

It’s been five days since Dave was returned to you. It’s also been five days since you’ve left the apartment. Not to the store, not to the roof, hardly a foot out the front door when you ordered takeout. A part of you wants to say you’ve become a prisoner in your own home, but something stronger tells you that you’re selfish – _at least you’re not a prisoner in your own fucking body._

But, Jesus. 

You check the time on your phone. 23:18. Multiple missed calls, multiple unheard voice messages piled up from the past few days. You know who they’re from, but you stall in responding. You’ve chalked it up to being busy, being distracted. Lately, the ounces of guilt in your body have been dripping up to your thighs. _Not in danger of drowning yet,_ you think.

Anyone else would call you an asshole, but you’re currently the only conscious resident available to make that proclamation. 

You loll your head around for another minute until you really can’t stand the silence drowning out Goldfinger, until you really can’t stand thinking about how Tony Hawk hasn’t landed himself in a coma yet. The fidgeting in your legs have spread to your arms, as you go from crossing them to splaying them out along the back of the couch to tugging at your shirt collar. 

Fuck it.

You unlock your phone, and you finally return the most recent missed call. The line only rings once before it’s picked up.

“Dirk, Jesus Christ almighty!”

Jesus Christ, indeed.

“I know. Sorry, Rox.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh, and you can hear her slam down a glass nearby. “What happened?”

“A lot,” you respond. “He’s responding more, anyway.”

“Dirk.” She sighs again, and she takes a moment to regain her thoughts. “I’m glad, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Well.”

“I mean, where have you been?”

“I’ve been home.”

“We finally get our kids back and you just check out, just run out on us?”

“Jesus, Rox, you’re making it sound like we’re married.”

“Don’t play this game with me, Dirk. I’m not in the mood. _You_ shouldn’t be in the mood.”

You sigh. This was a mistake. 

“Well?” she asks. “Why haven’t you called me back? Or Egbert, for that matter?”

You return to fidgeting with your collar, twisting an end between two fingers, kicking your feet up on the table in front of you. 

“I’m just trying to focus on one comatose kid at a time.”

“This isn’t about the kids.”

You heave a curt laugh. “Oh, really? Then pray tell, Roxy, what this _is_ about. Because as far as I’m concerned, this has _everything_ to do with the kids.”

She’s muttering something softly to herself, and you can hear her pour another glass. A moment and a sip later, she responds. 

“Let me rephrase,” she starts. “This is about being there for your _friends_ who are in the _exact_ situation as you are.” You hear her place the glass down again. “Who are _mourning_ over the fact that we let this happen—”

“Roxy, don’t.”

“—to our _kids!_ They’re _kids,_ Dirk! And we let him—”

“Roxy, we are _not_ talking about this over the phone.” You’ve changed your position, your feet planted firmly on the ground, elbows digging into your knees. “We can’t.”

She stops. There’s a rustle, and you hear a faint sniff, a tissue being ripped from its box. You press your thumb and forefinger against your temple and forehead respectively. 

“Look,” you say, knowing she’s returned, “I’m sorry. I just can’t talk about this.” You breathe in a steady breath before continuing. “I can’t talk about the kids.”

“Then just listen. You don’t have to talk.” She slurps down another long sip of her drink. “Just be there for us, would you? Please, Dirk.”

You run your hand over your hair. “Alright. I’m sorry, Roxy.”

“It’s alright.” She lets out a shaky breath. “I know it’s hard.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I am.”

You pull your phone away briefly to check the time again. 23:27. You’re silent for a while, as is she, and you listen to her move things around and sip at her drink. Your legs have returned to their fidgety, bopping state.

“I actually have a question,” you say.

“I knew it.”

“I haven’t left the house since he came home.”

“I don’t think any of us have, dear.”

“Would it be shitty of me to run out on him for half an hour?”

“Possibly,” she responds. “You never know what could happen while you’re gone.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And I’m assuming the connections you _do_ have aren’t particularly competent when it comes to taking care of a comatose child.”

“To be fair, we weren’t exactly competent when they came back, either.”

“So my assumption’s right, then?”

You sigh. “Yes, your assumption’s right.”

“I think you should stick it out until tomorrow. Call whoever’s assigned to Dave, then run out for however long.”

“Rox, I don’t know if I trust the guys who were ‘assigned’ to our kids.”

She hums. “I know. But who else can we trust?”

“Oh, I don’t know, real doctors?”

“They are real doctors, Dirk.”

“As far as they’ll tell us.”

“Dirk, please.”

You huff. “Okay. But even then, we’re supposed to call only if something goes wrong or if they wake up. I don’t think they really give a shit beyond that point.”

“Just wait it out until tomorrow. Tomorrow, call the guy, and ask what you should do. I don’t think they’ll kill you for asking.”

“Alright. I guess.” You lean back against the couch again, letting out a heavy breath. “Jesus, I just want this to be over with.”

“I know. Listen, it’s late, and you should probably get some sleep. I’m sure it’s been a long day.”

“Mhm.”

“Call Egbert tomorrow, alright?”

“Yeah. I will. Talk to you later, Roxy.”

You say your goodnights and you hang up, dropping your phone against your chest. You still feel very much in the same spot that you started out in, only fifteen minutes older.

You settle for continuing Tony Hawk Pro Skater again. You keep the volume low, keeping a keen ear out for the possibility of Dave calling out or making any sort of noise. But the game isn’t stimulating enough—or maybe it’s too distracting?—so you stop after an hour and settle for a movie. It doesn’t matter which one. You choose a random recommendation on Netflix and settle, finding yourself staring through the screen and the dialogue. Holding onto the hope that it’ll put you to sleep, you try to get comfortable on the couch. 

Nothing works.

You hate to admit it, but you’re too anxious. Two A.M. rolls around and you’re still shifting your position every five minutes, unable to get into a spot that would let you sleep.

The loud rumble from your stomach gives you enough reason to get up, and you switch the television off. The room turns dark save for the light from the hallway. You stretch your jittery legs and decide, before checking out the kitchen, to check in on Dave.

You stand in his doorway, flicking his light on. He continues to breathe steadily, but his eyes stay closed. You pretend that he’s sleeping, that this is the right hour for people to sleep, but you can’t ignore the fact that he would be awake at this hour anyway. There’s no way to normalize what you’re looking at.

After staring at him for a solid five minutes, you decide he’s fine, as fine as he can be currently, and you turn the light off.

You’ve gotta get out of here.

“I’ll be right back,” you say. Too quietly for him to hear. Not that he would necessarily respond anyway.

You close his door behind you and snatch your keys and wallet from the kitchen counter. It’ll only be a half hour, you think. You just went three hours without checking on him. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. 

And you slip out the front door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :-)
> 
> p.s. it's currently nearing the end of the semester for me so i'm going to be pretty busy with schoolwork. updates may be infrequent for a little while, but generally expect an update or two every week.


	3. Dave: Take it slow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter this time! getting back into the groove of making bro and dave interact which is...something. 
> 
> also you can hmu here: spacepuck.tumblr.com

“Dave?”

You’re digging your teeth into the heels of your palms, still staring at him between your fingers as you force your breathing to slow. He pushes his pointed sunglasses to the top of his head before crouching in front of you, and his features quickly become shadowed. As far as you can tell, he’s trying to catch your eyes, but they scatter to focus on something else. 

The walls have stopped lurching toward you. Now, everything is starkly static. You squeeze your eyes to shut out the dark.

He crouches quietly in front of you for a while, maybe waiting for you to acknowledge him, maybe trying to figure out what to say. You pull your palms away from your mouth, only to curl your fingers against your eye sockets instead. The puffy circles under your eyes are still damp with tears. Tears that came in a panic — tears that you knew he saw and you hated that he saw them. 

You hate how he’s staring at you. You hate how you can’t look at him. You hate how you don’t know what the fuck is going on.

_this fucking sucks this fucking sucks this fucking sucks_

The room is too quiet. As you struggle to keep yourself calm, at least on the outside, he gently taps the outside of your left knee with the back of his hand. He speaks as you pull your leg away from him in a small jerk. 

“Dude, I need you to look at me. I need to make sure you’re actually awake.”

You shift your 

legs????? god damn it

to sit cross-legged. Slowly, you drop your hands into your lap, squinting down at yourself and the floor. 

He lets out a heavy breath through his teeth, then speaks, despite you refusing to look up at him. The small quiver in his exhale catches your attention.

“What’s your name?” he asks. You quirk a brow at him, but you respond with some hesitation. Is this a trick question?

“Dave.”

“Dave what?” He waits for a moment, but, sensing that you didn’t really grasp what he meant, he clarifies, “What’s your last name?”

You hesitate again. Fuck, he made you feel so goddamn stupid. “Strider.” The syllables come out slow, dry. You try to wet your mouth with your tongue, but you feel like a desert has rooted itself inside you.

“Do you know where you are?” 

“Home.”

“And where’s that?” He quickly elaborates again. “Where’s home?”

Jesus. Growing frustrated, you push the flats of your fingers against your eyes again, letting out a harsh sigh. As he waits for your response, his stance grounded and imposing and frankly becoming too much, you scramble to find the right answer. 

It takes a long moment, but you respond, “Houston.”

He lets out a positive hum. “Do you know who I am?”

 _Who the fuck else could you be?_ you wonder, but as you open your mouth to answer, you catch yourself. In a heavy, sudden rush, a name pushes itself to the forefront of your mind, and you can almost feel it travel down to the tip of your tongue. 

You drop your hands again and raise your eyes to look at him, squinting through the shadows on his face. He’s still looking at you, his arms propped on his knees, hands holding the pointed shades that had been previously pushed through his hair. Unmistakably, his vibrant

orange??? _orange_

eyes jumpstart your memory. 

“Fuck,” you mumble. 

He raises a dark brow at you, and he starts to say something – “Wrong” “Very funny” “Yep you’re right that’s my name” – but decides to let you finish your thoughts. You swallow. And you swallow again, you’re swallowing the entirety of Texas through your scratchy throat, and you decide, instead, to bite your tongue on the matter.

It can’t be him, not really. Not the one from...

_from???_

“Bro." The word falls from you awkwardly, a corpse rolling from the morgue table onto the floor.

He doesn't notice. He just hums again, the little “mhm” buzzing past you like a fly. 

“Yeah,” he says, “That’s right.” He smiles tiredly, pushing his glasses back to the top of his head. “Congrats, dude. You’re awake.”

The quake in his voice pushes through again. You can’t help but notice it – you can’t remember ever having heard it in his voice before. But as the walls still pulse in the corners of your eyes, you wouldn’t put it past your mind to be making this shit up either.

He stands up slowly, pushing off from his knees. From your spot on the floor, you can hear a distinct _pop_ ring from his joints, and then a short quip of a sigh from his mouth. He’s looking down at you, and you’re realizing that you can’t really get up from the floor. All of the stumbling around you did earlier had left you sore and exhausted. 

You hope he doesn’t notice. You hope that he’ll just turn around and do something else while you crabwalk your way to the couch and sit on it like you had just waltzed over there your damn healthy self. Unfortunately, he seems to know better, and he leans down with his hands out to you, waiting for you to grab them. You eye them – they’re bare.

When you don’t reach out to him, hesitating for too long, he reaches down further, swiftly scooping you up from under your pits, slowly hoisting you up to your feet. Startled, you grasp his arms. Your vision quickly and harshly warps the darkness in your peripherals.

“Jesus,” you huff, though less at him and more at your wobbling legs and dizzy head.

“It’s fine,” he reassures. “Just take it slow, kid.”

You’re not sure what he means until he steps forward, forcing you to stumble back a step in response. You step back a few more times, letting him guide you ass-backwards into the dark, until you can feel the couch pressing against the back of your knees. He lowers you onto it, and you sink back, closing your eyes again. Fuck, you feel so tired. Your stomach isn’t feeling fantastic, either – but, in general, nothing about you is feeling fantastic. Everything is very un-fantastic. Uncool. Unbelievable. Un-whatever. You’re just trying to catch your breath again.

Bro is behind you, and you can hear him dialing a number into his phone, the short _ping ping pings_ keeping your loudly beating heart some company. While it rings, he grabs the blanket draped over the arm of the couch and places it over your legs, but leaves you to fix it over yourself as the line is picked up.

“Yeah, it’s me. Strider,” you hear him say, but he quickly moves into the hallway, probably to step away from your prying ears. You look over the back of the couch to follow him with your eyes, but all that’s left to look at is his stretched shadow in the hallway light floating across the floor. He tries to keep his voice low, but as you swivel your head around again the face forward, you can tell he’s talking about you. It’s difficult for him to keep his voice below a gruff mutter.

“He’s awake,” you hear. “He just woke up.” 

_I’m awake. Cool._

“He answered the questions. He’s okay.”

_I’m okay. Apparently. I’m fine. Doin' real fine._

“Jesus Christ, three days? Why?”

You turn your head a little as he raises his voice, but, as quickly as it had come, the volume recedes with a quiet sigh. He’s silent for a long time, and you watch his shadow brush its dark hand through its hair. Quickly, you sense that he’s agitated, and you turn forward again, sinking further down into the couch. You pick at your nails under the blanket.

After muttering a “great, thanks” into the phone, Bro returns to the room, but not over to you. Instead, you hear the rustling of plastic bags, and you listen to him place groceries away. He’s trying to do it quietly, but with each drawer he closes and cabinet that he lets fall shut, the more your shoulders creep up to your ears.

_Christ, calm down._

It keeps happening. You sink down further into the couch until you’re just about to slip off of the edge, at which point you dig your heels into the ground. 

The noise ends with Bro’s finalizing sigh. He walks back over to you, planting his hands on the back of the couch. You can’t see him peering down at you, but you can feel it.

“You okay?” he asks. 

The question makes you cringe a little. Are you okay? _Are you okay?_ Oh, fuck, does that get under your skin – “Yeah, Bro, I’m dandy, apparently I just woke up from a coma and I have no idea how I got here or if this is even remotely real, because I thought you died like years ago and I thought this fucking place was buried ass-deep in lava, but you know, it’s chill, I’m chill, _everything’s_ chill. Didn’t you get the memo? So chill. I totally _don't_ hate your fucking guts or anything and I totally _don't_ feel like a goddamn idiot for not being able to knock your teeth out this very second, but you know, it's whatever, right?” 

Instead, you shrug, saying nothing. You can hardly follow your own thoughts as they tumble over the edge of your frontal lobe.

“Well,” he starts, and he comes around the couch to sit on the table opposite you, setting his arms on his thighs, “you’re gonna get checked out in a few days. Doc’s going to ask you more questions, probably give you a physical.” He runs his hand through his hair again. You wonder when he started doing that. He busies himself by looking at anything but you. “He said it sounds like you’re doing alright so far.”

“Okay.”

He hums quietly again. “Yeah. I—” He starts to speak, but goes silent. You watch him struggle with himself briefly before he stands up again. “Jesus, you’re probably thirsty as hell.”

“Mhm.” You’ve already accepted the Texas desert as a part of you, but you’re not ready to accept a drought.

You listen to the water run. He lingers near the sink for a moment too long, then finally returns, holding the sports bottle out to you, top already pulled out. You grab it, which ends up more as a weak grasp, and tilt it into your mouth. _Captain, the sea levels are rising._

“Shit, dude, slow down,” he says, and you can’t tell if he’s laughing or not far under his words, but you feel him grasp the end of the water bottle. “You’re going to throw up if you chug it.”

So you slow down. Soon, you stop drinking it, finding that water hitting an empty stomach feels kind of horrible. 

A part of you remembers that three years ago he wouldn’t have given a shit if you threw up.

As he yawns into his hand, you shift your vision to the window. The sky has become a dark, dark blue. Or maybe it’s still black. You want to ask the time, but every time you open your mouth to speak, the words just don’t come to you. _What’s the time_ , you want to say. _What’s the time?_

You repeat this to yourself, but all that slips out in a weak, shitty, “Time?”

After deliberating what you meant, he checks his phone, squinting down at the light. “4:11.”

You realize that it didn’t matter to you what the time was. You were exhausted either way. The sun's business was irrelevant to your current state.

Bro stands, stretching his arms over his head. He looks down at you, then nods his head in the direction of the hallway. “Come on, kid. You’ll probably be more comfortable in bed.”

Instead of bringing you to your feet this time, he leans down to drape your arm over his shoulders. He scoops you up entirely, an arm beneath your knees and the other under your shoulders. 

“Jesus,” you huff, grasping his shoulder. You feel the water slosh around in your stomach.

“You’re telling me.” He starts to wade over to your bedroom, carefully stepping over and around the wires strewn over the floor. “You got fuckin’ big.” 

You can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He makes no noise to indicate that he’s struggling – he makes carrying you seem like lifting a paper bag. You grasp at his shoulder, wondering why he didn’t leave you on the couch like normal. Wondering why he's being so fucking nice.

Once you’re back in your room, settled back into the you-shaped crevice in the bed, you watch him fuss with a metal pole that you had bypassed when you stumbled out of your coma. He checks the plastic bags, the tubes clanking against the metal quietly. After a minute of getting nowhere, he steps back to your desk, then flips the switch of your

light?? sun?? lamp. lamp,

and you’re finally able see him in the light. 

As you watch him fuss with the equipment, you find that he’s what you remember and not. He’s still taller and stronger and imposing as fuck. He still has a slightly crooked nose from a fight he got into when you were twelve. A long pale scar still reaches from his temple to just above his lip, which has been there for as long as you can remember. The birthmark under his jaw is still dark and noticeable. 

But then there’s his hair, which is unkempt from raking his fingers through it, lacking a signature baseball cap to cover up the mess. There’re his hands without his gloves, calloused but strong. There’s his face, where he’s let an overlay of dark blond creep along his jaw and chin. There’s his face in general, actually – he looks exhausted, especially with his shades hooked on his shirt collar instead of concealing his eyes. 

He looks older, you guess. 

And not dead.

He sits beside you on the bed, having replaced the bags, and takes your arm in his hand. It’s still sore from smashing it against the couch, and in the light, you can see a purple welt blossoming over your elbow. Looking over him, he has a small bundle of supplies sitting in his lap, individually wrapped.

“Jesus, you really yanked it out, didn’t you?”

He thumbs around the smaller bruise on the inside of your elbow. It’s a dull ache, but you let him do it. You give a short hum in response. 

Without much explanation, he replaces the IV in your arm, working quietly. You’re not sure where he ever gained any sort of medical skill, but you’re not sure where he learns most of the things he knows. It was always just a given that he knew a bunch of unrelated shit and that’s what always made him cool – when you were younger, anyway. Now that he’s shoving a needle and some unspecific clear substance into your body, it makes you suspicious. He could be totally incompetent and he might be accidentally killing you as you speak. 

Maybe he’s acting all nice as some shitty ironic trick. Oh, Jesus, he might be finally trying to kill you.

He tapes over the needle and gives the drip bag a final check before getting up. You stare down at the needle and tube; it’s a little nerve-wracking, watching the liquid drip into you. The breath coming from you turns a little quaky, and you want to yank it from your arm again, because _fuck_ him, and _fuck_ this, and--

“It’s not poison,” he says, gathering up the wrappers. His back is facing you. “It’s not going to kill you.”

Still, you stare at it, but leave it alone. You suppress a nervous whine.

After tossing the wrappers out, he turns off the lamp and the two of you are left in the dark again. He’s a dark blob, moving towards you, and he reaches out to briefly ruffle your hair. Long, loose strands fall over your cheeks and nose. 

“Get some sleep, dude.” He turns, making his way to the door. “If you need anything, give me a holler.”

And he leaves. He leaves your bedroom door open a crack, and as you lay down you stare at the hallway light peeking in. 

Everything’s too quiet again. 

\--

You wake at a time when the sky is a medium blue with crowded purple edges, waking in a startle that makes your legs kick. Propping yourself on an elbow, you look around the room quickly, searching in a tired panic. 

There was nothing. 

It was reassuring. 

But you don’t remember what you were looking for anyway, so it was actually just stupid. 

As you settle yourself back in to sleep again, clearing your mind enough to get rid of the residual panic, you can hear the birds waking outside. Beyond your bedroom door, you can hear Bro speaking quietly, but just loud enough that his voice traveled. You can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or to someone on the phone. Then you realize that it’s probably both, or maybe neither, and that it doesn’t really matter. Like hell you missed his voice anyway. 

You sleep and wake another few times, each time pressing yourself up to scan the room, each time getting frustrated that you couldn’t explain why this was happening. It’s just past seven-thirty when you fall asleep for the third time – the sky blue and orange and trying to touch your legs. 

The next time you hear Bro, he’s standing near you, speaking quietly again. But everything is dark -- you’re not sure if you’re dreaming, and he slips away without you noticing. 

You wake fully when the sky is bright blue and nothing else. Sliding onto your elbows, then onto your hands and finally sitting upright, you rub your sore puffy eyes until you see stars behind your eyelids. When you plant your feet onto the floor, you can feel the distant thumping of Bro’s music through your toes. You can hear it, too. You listen to it for a while before finally peering at the time and standing up. As a second thought, you grab your shades from your desk and slide them over your face. 

10:26. You grab onto the IV pole, and you begin your slow trek out to the kitchen.

Bro catches your eyes as you trudge in (shade-less, which immediately catches you off guard), but only for a moment – he quickly resumes his conversation over the phone, twisting his chair under him idly. When you get over to the kitchen counter – _I could eat everything on this entire goddamn planet and nobody will stop me_ – you’re met with a note next to the sink written in thick red marker. 

bro –

stick to liquids and soft foods. your ass will probably fall off if you eat anything else and i really can’t help you with that.

ajs in the fridge.

This raises your tiring suspicions -- aj in the fridge? Unheard of.

But you take your chances and open the fridge (and flinch—only to find that it’s a horribly normal fridge, that all of the swords that used to occupy it have mysteriously disappeared) and grab the familiar juice bottle. Exhausted from your endeavor ( _wimp_ ), you lean against the fridge door, staring at Bro as he turns in slow half-circles in his chair. 

It sinks in again that you're home. Home. 

But it's not right. As you look around, some things are familiar, like the set-up of your brother's music equipment and the monstrous television and his ridiculous collection of hats. His trunk of smuppet supplies lingers near his desk, unorganized and spilling over -- but the puppets are gone. Some colorful puppet asses still peek from near the futon, but the rest of them have disappeared. Jigsaw doesn't hang by the door. The ceiling is free from the other marionettes. Lil Cal is nowhere to be seen -- but you suppose that's always been the point. 

You watch your brother as he idly listens to whoever he's talking to. He's tapping a pen against the side of his desk -- an actual desk. Sweeping your eyes over the room again, you see that the cinder block-plywood monstrosities have been replaced. The posters on the walls have been replaced with new ones -- not necessarily less shitty, but you don't understand them on a new level. You haven't been here. You actually don't understand any of the references. 

What the fuck has happened since you left? 

Listening to his conversation – where he inserts a string of “mhms” and “sure, yeahs” and sometimes mentions your name – you realize that it’s been a while since you talked to someone. At least it feels like a while.

You don't want to hear his voice anymore anyways. IV pole and apple juice in hand, you make your slow trek back to your room. 

You wonder what John’s up to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update 4/27: it's officially finals time for me!! which means that you may not see an update until sometime next week -- hopefully you'll see something before 5/7. unfortunately my exams and term papers are taking me away from my boys :-( don't fret though -- i've been writing the next segment here and there!
> 
> thank you all so much for the kudos, comments, and bookmarks! yall give me hope.


	4. Bro: Talk to James

“Doc cleared the kid?”

“Yes, he says he’s doing well enough, considering. Although, he is finding it difficult to speak at the moment.” James sighs softly, muffled static over the receiver. “He still finds it hard to remember where he lives. He knows that he’s home, but…”

You twist in your desk chair slowly. The sun is in mid-set, giving the living room a warm orange hue, light hitting your shoulder warmly. The last strands of sunlight hit the dust settling to the floor.

Things were quiet, save for James. He kept himself busy on his end, moving things around, re-organizing. The anxiety that he usually subdued was making an appearance. 

John woke up four days ago. Your phone had buzzed in the mid-afternoon, and you had ignored it for a while, thinking it was another work question – _hey should we do this or that, when do you need this shipment to be in, brandi is really sick so we’re substituting her with candi_ – so when you read that it was from James at some dark asinine hour in the morning, your heart sank. Only a little, though. You subdued your guilt in much the same ways that the old man subdued his anxious habits.

Of course, you weren’t doing too great in the guilt department lately. Everything was toppling off the shelves and everyone decided to bail and take their smoke break, leaving you to pick up name-brand You Fucked Up™ off the floor by yourself. Except when you went to pick one up, ten more came crashing down. Your shelves were becoming bare. Soon you’d have to close up shop because damn, this dude couldn’t keep his shit together.

Or something like that.

“Everything else alright, though?” 

“Yes, I believe so. He’s been sleeping for the most part. The incision from the tracheotomy is healing well.” He pauses, and you hear the soft puff of him nursing his pipe. “I appreciate you calling to check on us, Dirk.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving you guys hanging.” 

“Well, it was quiet this past week.” He pauses, as if waiting for you to explain, but continues when you remain silent. His voice grows soft. “Was everything alright?”

As you lean back in your chair, you try to conceal a sigh, breathing it out slowly through your nose. “Guess so.”

It totally wasn’t alright. 

While the first couple days mostly consisted of Dave getting up for a couple hours at a time only to pass out for naps extending into the night, something in the days following suddenly reared its ugly head. You weren’t prepared for the sudden violent outbursts at four in the morning, which usually ended in you clamoring to his room, finding the kid staring at whatever he had decided to throw – a sneaker at his lamp, a half-filled water bottle at his tall fan, his fist against the wall, his other fist against the table – looking mortified and dazed. 

You learned to stop asking what happened. He hasn’t spoken to you since the night he woke up. 

Not until today, anyway.

“Dirk,” James says, still using his Dad voice – god, you hated when he used the Dad voice, “is everything alright with Dave?”

You’re quiet for another moment, debating on whether you should just lie again and change the topic. But the sun’s going down and the house is quiet. 

The house is quiet because Dave’s asleep again – not because he’s coma-tired anymore, you don’t think, but because he had gotten into a lengthy one-sided argument with you earlier that you had trouble following because he kept tripping over his words, running out of breath, muffling his voice with his hands. You say one-sided because he didn’t even give you a chance to get any sort of word in – as soon as he was finished, he stormed away, leaving you at your desk more confused that you had felt in weeks. 

“He’s been acting weird,” you indulge.

“Hmm. Well, he did just wake up a week ago.”

“Nah, I mean…” You run your fingers through your bangs, frustrated at yourself that you’re confiding in him. Again. This always happened. “He stopped talking to me. And I don’t mean that he just can’t talk, because he talked to the doctor just fine a few days ago, and he kind of talks to himself all the time. I mean he just won’t to talk to me.”

James is silent, pressing you to go on.

“I mean, except for today, but the kid seemed to be in the middle of a fever dream. He started yelling about something, but fuck if I know what he was going on about. Couldn’t understand a word he was saying.” 

“My goodness.”

“Yeah. It happened pretty fast. Didn’t know he had that much of a mouth on him.”

He smokes his pipe again. “Have you checked on him since?”

“Yeah. Kid’s passed out.” You start flipping a pen between your fingers, becoming a little antsy. “I think he’s been having some nasty fucking dreams lately, too.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

You huff a short laugh. “God, he’ll just start knocking shit over at four in the morning. Throwing things, punching walls, just whaling on things sometimes.” Fidgeting, you tap the pen lightly against your knee, listening to the plastic rattle. “But when it’s over, he just looks confused. I don’t think he’s even aware of what he’s doing.”

“Does he ever tell you why?”

“Nope. Won’t talk to me.”

“I see.”

The two of you grow quiet. You reach over to turn on your desk lamp as the room settles into a dusty blue. A crow pecks at the windowsill beside your desk, tapping at the glass for a few moments before flying off. 

“I have no idea what to do,” you conclude quietly. 

You listen to him fidget with his pipe, a glass of water, his glasses. He’s thinking. 

“He may just be adjusting. Who knows what our children have been up to these past few years?” He’s closing a cabinet, and then he’s flipping through a book, maybe mindlessly, maybe intently. “It’s been a while since he’s seen you, Dirk. And I know you two didn’t part on the best of terms.” 

The sigh you’ve been suppressing falls from you heavily. You pinch the bridge of your nose. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“Hm?”

“I think I might have actually fucked up this kid. Like, for life.” You toss the pen back on the desk, opting to stand and wander around the living room. Frustration starts to circulate through your bloodstream. “I mean, we used to be fine. Yeah, it was just the two of us, but he had a reason to _like_ me back then.”

“I understand Dirk, I—”

“But he’s not going to remember that stuff. He’s going to remember the part where I—Jesus, where do I fucking begin. People don’t remember shit before the age of eight.” Pacing, angry, waving your free hand around as you enunciate your words – you’re struggling to keep your voice low. “It’s not fucking fair. English must have known about that—planned around that childhood amnesia shit.”

James’ voice hitches a little. “Dirk, don’t—”

“And I still don’t know why he made _me_ act like such a fucking prick to the kid, you know? Like, why was _I_ the one who had to—”

“Now, Dirk.” An air of sternness drifts into his voice, and you finally silence yourself. “Be careful.”

You take a moment to breathe in slowly to settle your nerves. It doesn’t work. “But you know what I mean, dude. I don’t know how I played into his warped-up plan.”

“I understand. And I’m sorry he made you go through with all of that.”

“I just.” You sigh, planting your hand on the back of the futon, stabilizing yourself as your mind continues to whir. “I don’t know. There’s no way I can even begin to explain to him what happened. I know I can’t do that.” 

“Correct.” 

“But I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s not talking to me.”

A gentle hum comes from his throat, buzzing into your ear. “It’s a big possibility, of course. Again, I believe he’s just adjusting. It must be incredibly difficult for them right now.”

“Yeah.”

In the background, you can hear James opening his fridge, gathering items, settling them on the countertop. He opens a drawer, and you hear the soft clatter of utensils hitting one another.

“Can I ask what you do when he has these nightmares?”

“Uh.” You pause, shoving your sunglasses to the top of your head. The room has taken on a dark blue, save for the desk lamp. “I mean, I pick up the shit he knocked over. Bandage his hands. Ask him what’s up, which he doesn’t respond to, so I just leave him alone.”

“Hm,” he hums, starting to chop whatever’s in front of him. “Have you considered sitting with him?” 

A small, choked laugh escapes you. “What?”

“Well, it sounds like he’s pretty shaken after these dreams. I think your presence might give him some comfort.”

You can feel your stomach twist uncomfortably under your ribs. “I don’t know, Egbert. He doesn’t seem too fond of me at the moment.”

“Consider it an exercise. Maybe it’ll help him warm up to you again, seeing that you care.”

You start to retaliate, about to ask, well what if it _doesn’t_ help and only makes things _worse_ , what if _you’re_ the reason why he’s getting so worked up – but you bite your tongue. The old man has heard enough personal garbage for the day. For the year. For the next damn century.

“Alright,” you say instead. 

“Do what your mother would do, Dirk.”

Your mom, your personal Jesus, somewhere on the coast of California. “Too bad I’m not my mom.”

He makes a noise to respond, but stops himself. _Have you heard anything?_ he probably wanted to ask. _Are you still looking for her?_

Instead, he seems to decide to cut the personal talk as well. “Well, I suppose we should be on our ways. I believe I hear John trying to wander.”

“Yeah. I should probably get the kid to eat something.”

The two of you say your goodbyes, but just before you hang up, he calls your name again. 

“Hm?” you ask, pressing the phone back against your ear.

He pauses, puffing on his pipe in thought, organizing his words. “Don’t forget that you’re more than just a brother to Dave. You’re more of a parent than you think you are.”

Oh, lord, not this again. 

You groan, wading over to the kitchen to inspect the fridge. “Thanks, _Dad._ I’ll be sure to write that one down and hang it on the fridge with the rest of your sparkling affirmations.”

You can hear his shit-eating smile over the phone. “Take care, Dirk.” 

He hangs up first. 

As you toss your phone onto the kitchen counter, you let your shoulders drop. The fact that he could always get you to ramble about your feelings still fucked you up a little – he had been doing it for the past way-too-long, really since your dad kicked the bucket. 

Somewhere deep down, you appreciate that he got you to open up. But residing in the forefront of your mind is a panicky little monster that wants you to abort any and all missions involving you getting personal. It constantly keeps you in check, until it fails, at which point it starts screaming and hollering and bashing the panic button with its big ugly fists.

So naturally, the monster is throwing a tantrum, and you try to distract yourself with filling up a glass with water. 

You’re trying not to think about the fact that James Egbert knows more about you than anyone has and maybe ever will. 

Trying not to think about the fact that he didn’t even know your father as well as he now knows you. 

And you’re especially trying not to think about the fact that this is a man you’ve met a grand total of three times in person, and he can still unwind you so severely just over the phone.

Everything tells you not to trust him. But you do. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less try to hurt you. Besides, you could beat the shit out of him if it came down to it. 

Probably.

\--

As nine o’clock rolls around, you finally order food, calling the Thai place a few blocks away. They know your order by heart, and nearly hang up before you order something for Dave. You don’t even know what he likes (do sixteen year olds like the same foods that they liked at thirteen?), but you get something that at least won’t tear his insides apart. 

You have half an hour before the food’s scheduled to arrive. Half an hour to wake Dave up and convince him to eat.

There are bigger battles in the world, you suppose.

As you walk into the hall and approach his room, you hear some movement from the other side of the door – a chair rolling across the floor quietly, fingers tapping against the desk. You freeze up—

 _fuck, how long has he been awake? he probably heard me, he’s going to ask questions, I’m going to lose this fucking kid_ again, _I fucked up, I Fucked Up™_ —

and inhale, exhale, before tapping on his door. 

“Dave, you up?”

There’s a pause in the movement, total silence on the other side. You consider your options of either walking away or opening the door anyway before you hear his tired response.

“S’open.” 

You open the door just enough to step halfway inside the room, leaning against the door frame. He’s at his desk, chin in hand, positioned so you’re only graced with the back of his head and the knobs of his spine making round shadows in his shirt. There’s a book splayed in front of him, and he thumbs the bottom corner with his other hand to fill some of the silence. The headphones hanging from his neck, playing muffled music into his skin, give you some relief. 

“I ordered Thai. Figured you might want to eat something that’s not liquefied.” 

He makes a small noise in response, not really giving you any indication that he cares, but his growling stomach is telling enough. As he shifts to ease the discomfort, you realize, then, that since his strange outburst earlier, he had avoided coming out of his room – he’s probably been up for some hours, probably starving because he just didn’t want to cross paths with you.

Jesus, was James wrong – you definitely weren’t a parent. Even good brothers didn’t fuck up this much.

You want to ask him what happened earlier, but you can tell he doesn’t want to talk to you. He probably doesn’t even want to acknowledge it ever happened, considering he actively avoided you since. So you leave him alone to read until the food comes, and even then, he opts to eat at his desk. 

When you return an hour later, just to see if he ate anything at all, you find that he’s curled up in bed, sleeping, the desk light still on and the book still open. The takeout container on his desk is half-empty, and you take it before turning off the light. 

Before closing the bedroom door, you watch him breathe slowly, pillow clutched against his chest. He’s peaceful now, you think. 

_He’s exhausted._

At least he ate something. You toss the leftovers in the fridge.

\--

By this point in the game, you’re prepared for four a.m. to roll around. You’re technically sleeping, but something in you remains awake, waiting for something to crash, waiting for Dave to yell something unintelligible and laden with sleep. 

When it happens, the noise that yanks you into full consciousness is the metal fan tipping and clashing against the wall beside it. You get up slowly from the futon, wading through the darkness over to his bedroom door. 

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, but you catch him kneeling tall on his bed, arms raised slightly with fists ready. He’s breathing hard – the breaths sucked in shakily and exhaled in wavers. 

“Dave,” you say, voice soft, gravelly from sleep.

He doesn’t respond. His eyes are on you as you place the fan back in its upright position, letting it circulate the air in the room again. You have to squint through the dark to catch his eyes – turning on the lights would be torture for the both of you – and once you do, you ask,

“You okay?”

Slowly, he lowers his fists, letting them uncurl at his sides. You look around for the thrown object near your feet, grasp at the pillow’s loose case, and walk over to his bed to toss it in the general area it belonged in. 

Dave looks up at you as you stand beside him. He’s sunk back onto his calves, kneeling tiredly, breath still entering and exiting in shaky warbles. But he’s intent on staring at you, which was a change of pace. 

You shove your hands into the pockets of your sweatpants as you look down at him. “Talk to me, kid. Something’s up.” 

That makes him break his gaze. He looks down at his lap, gliding his hands over his loosened hair, holding them to the top of his head. 

You remember your conversation with James, and you bite the inside of your cheek.

With him looking away, you reluctantly take the chance to sit near him at the end of his bed, pulling a hand from your pocket to lean against it. He looks at you, and you read him as slightly bewildered, mostly confused. As he lowers his hands again, the hair falls back over his face. 

“Jesus, you need a haircut.”

You reach out, un-pocketing your other hand to flick the strands away, tugging some of the thicker strands behind his ear. This elicits a reaction from him, and he moves himself away from your fingers.

“Bro,” he breathes. 

You pull your hand back, resting it on your leg.

“Yeah?”

He’s struggling, you think. He’s looking around the room, eyes focusing on the fan that he had assaulted for a solid moment, then wandering again, searching for something. Trying to identify something. But he can’t find it, whatever it is.

You would think that this would be reassuring – that whatever he thought was attacking him wasn’t really there – but instead he raises his arm to his face, burying his nose into his wrist. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, and you can hear the dip in his voice as his eyes shine over with tears. “ _Shit._ ”

“What?” you ask, and you sit up straight, readjusting your position to face him fully. “Dave, what happened?”

He shakes his head a little, trying to brush the whole thing off, but as he sniffs snot back up into his nose and wipes at his eyes, he folds in on himself. Repeating curses to himself behind his curled hand, biting back the shuddering sobs filling up his chest. 

When you place a hand on his shoulder, the only thing you can think to do to keep him steady, a strangled whine escapes his throat. Slowly, the weeping unravels the tension and makes his chest heave. 

_Did I fuck up? Am I picking up more than what’s coming down?_

The last time you had comforted a weepy sixteen year old was when you were in high school. Your boyfriend’s grandmother had suddenly died, and he clung to you horribly in the boy’s bathroom the following day. He wept so loudly someone from administration had to guide him away, down to the guidance counselor while you were left behind in the bathroom with a tear-stained shirt. You thought that maybe he wanted to claw the life out of you instead, but it was hard to tell. 

It’s whatever now. It was a long time ago.

Dave’s crying is different. He clings to himself, clawing at himself, as if you’re not there at all. Covering his face with his hands as if he'll disappear, trying to subdue himself.

You move a little closer to him, muttering quiet words as you smooth a hand over his spine. He’s trying to hide his tears, wiping them away with his sleeves and the backs of his hands, but it’s no use – you know he’s crying, and he knows you know, and yet he’s still trying to pretend that you don’t. It’s kind of stupid. 

But you don’t say it like that. 

“It’s alright,” you say instead, laying your hand in the space between his shoulder blades firmly, feeling his body jostle, “just let it out, bud.”

That was all it took, it seems. 

As he lets the proverbial shitstorm take over, the last support beam within him collapses. He curls inward in staccato sobs, harsh and pained and tired. You wrap an arm around him tentatively, and he lets you. He positions himself to press his face into your shoulder, removing his hands from his face to instead grip at his sides, and you let him.

He sobs wetly against you, and you place a hand on the back of his neck, gripping gently to steady him. Listening to him made your chest ache in a way that it hadn’t in a long time, and when you try to place it, you can only think of your mom. 

You think of the way she cradled him when he was two, the year he got hit with repeat colds and ear infections and spent more time at the doctor's than at home. The words you imagined she whispered when he cried from the pain that woke him and everyone else up at night. The way he reached out to her, hardly sparing you a second glance because you weren’t her. 

He doesn’t remember her, you know. As far as he can recall, he never had real parents. He only ever had you. 

So you hold him against you a little tighter. 

“I’ve got you, dude.”

The blackbirds outside start to sing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of stuff in this chapter! a part of me is worried that i'm rushing it, but hopefully the pacing is fine. i had fun figuring out Dad and Bro's dynamic :') (they're not romantically involved, but if you read it that way, i can't stop you lmao.) also, we're getting into weepy Dave territory, which is a ride all on its own.
> 
> being able to hint more at stuff is exciting! if you think that Bro's high school boyfriend was Jake, you're totally right. will he make an appearance later? who knows. 
> 
> expect a new chapter sometime around 5/15. finals are kicking my ass. thank you for the kudos, bookmarks, and comments yall :-)


	5. Dave: Attack

You will – fuck, you’re _trying_ —

Everything had happened so quickly. You had all just been chilling, looking up at the big black expanse of space above your heads as stars whirled past, finally breathing. Breathing in what exactly, you had never figured out—you had never figured out if your lungs ever adjusted to what you assumed wasn’t oxygen, because who knows what whacked up elements are floating around in space (really, what’s in space? It’s a mystery—there’s too much undiscovered shit to make any clear assumptions. Despite jumping around light years and squatting on multiple planets, you still weren’t a scientist), especially on this dusty chunk of rock you were all flinging around the darkness on, but you guessed they adjusted just fine as you sucked in a long breath. 

And let it back out, tilting you head and feeling your neck pop. Your shoulders just about melted away from the rest of your body.

Things were calm. You had closed your eyes, giving up on stargazing, and listened instead. John was nearby, chattering to Roxy, who chattered even louder and called Dirk over to discuss whatever (something about the logistics of whatever whatever whatever – words were blurry, they didn’t sit very well with you for the time being), and you were settled nearby on your designated dusty patch of meteor to hang out alone. 

You would have joined in on their conversation, but again, words. Something with the connections in your brain made it perfectly fine to ramble on to yourself, but when it came to letting those words roll away from your being they instead made your tongue swollen and confused and you had to clamp your mouth shut to avoid stumbling through syllables. Even if you could speak right, the words they spoke just didn’t sit well with you. Didn’t register, not on time, couldn’t get their kids into preschool for that term because the month of July was just so busy, Barbara, listen, do _you_ have 3.5 kids to take care of? Registration just didn’t cross your mind until it was too late. 

So their voices were just a blur of beats and sounds. 

It was alright, really. At least you were able to hear them. You liked that you could pick out John’s voice above the rest, even as their voices began to layer over each other’s, side conversations becoming sub-conversations and sub-conversations branching off into deeper pockets of indistinct smudges. He had this kind of outburst of laughter that rose out of him frequently, and it trampled everyone’s voices—maybe just to be heard, for the dude’s joy to be recognized—and it ghosted over you. Ghosted over the whole damn meteor. 

Until it didn’t. His laughter stopped, and all of the voices followed. 

You were about to turn your head to see what had stolen their attention, but a firm hand on your shoulder moved you first. It gripped your shirt, dragging you up to your feet in a hurry and turning you around. Dirk stood before you, hands clamped firmly on your shoulders, mouthing something to you—he was speaking, you couldn’t understand what he was saying, could only hear the particulars of how his voice worked, quiet and firm and (distressed??)—before letting you go and dashing off. 

The others dashed away, too. Wasn’t that from a movie or something? _Dash away, dash away, dash away all_ —you couldn’t remember. John turned his head briefly over his shoulder to give you a pleading look— _dude come on, what are you waiting for!_ —and you followed, confused, heart racing up to an uncomfortable pace under your sternum. 

Voices rushed over you in panicked waves before you saw _him_ standing there, poised to slaughter, poised to ruin your goddamn day. 

And so here we are. 

You stand between Dirk and Terezi, your sick power formation, ready to battle like it’s 1212 and y’all are kids of Cloyes and you’re about to trample this thing into the ground. This thing that’s charging and taking absolutely no hits and no taking no shit and—fuck. 

You’re fucked. 

You grab your piece of shit sword and deflect the blows and you can _hear_ Terezi and Dirk trying to get your attention but nothing’s forming. Their words are watercolor and you’re a soggy page trapped in a downpour. 

A hand lays heavy and urgent on your arm and it’s Dirk again, except he’s not speaking this time, instead trying to catch your eyes with his through two layers of shades, but there’s no time— _he’s_ near you, you can feel it, you can hear everyone struggling, and in your peripheral the goddamn beast is coming too close again. 

You can’t run up to him and fight. Dirk’s holding you back, and you can hear him speaking, you can catch your name somewhere in the middle of his words, but you can’t understand why he’s not _fucking moving_ , why he’s not fighting, why he’s—

The beast is too close. You shove Dirk out of the way, struggling against his grip enough to launch your sword at _him_. It hits—or, you think it does, until everything falls away from you with a loud metallic clatter. 

Everything’s dark. The noise has stopped. 

Underneath you is a soft expanse. Your knees are wobbling and sinking down into it, but you stay tall, fists raised, Dirk no longer there to hold you back. You try to squint through the dark, ready to clock the beast in the face if he comes too close again. Adrenaline is making your bones shake, and jesus, you can hardly catch your breath. 

_breathe dude. aint gonna let this fucking thing think youre anything less than totally cool right now._

You flinch when a thread of light suddenly enters into your line of vision. Eyeing where it falls, you can tell you weren’t on that dusty-ass meteor anymore. _toto, my tiny black dawg, weve got a problem._

You’re in your bedroom. The one on Earth, in Texas, in Houston, at home. Your knees are sinking into your bed, and as your eyes make their slow adjustment to the dark, you can spot your computer, your tables, your photo enlarger looming in front of the window. The figure in the doorway calls your name, but it’s quiet, deep. He sounds tired. 

The time right now? Irrelevant. It’s just dark.

He picks up the toppled fan in the corner of your room, and it clatters back to life. As you stare at him—your peripherals still in overdrive, still searching for that _thing_ —he catches your eyes, squinting back at you. 

“You okay?” 

Are you? You can’t tell. You lower your fists (you try to quell the trembling, but you can’t override the epinephrine jostling your fucking bloodstream) and sink to rest the back of your thighs against your calves. 

He maneuvers his way through the dark to come closer to you. Your fists tense up again, but stay pressed against the sides of your legs. He tosses your sword back over to you, but it’s soft and warm and not a sword at all, and as the pillow settles back against the wall you suddenly realize that everything is muddled and off. 

This could all just be a dream, you sitting back in your room, somewhere safe and comfortable and quiet with real oxygen and the stars much farther away, far out of reach. Maybe that thing knocked you out and left you to die, left you to wander the memories of your old home for a little while before finally disappearing. 

The fan clatters as it circulates the humid Texas air through your bedroom. 

Well, your heart is still rattling against your chest, which you’re pretty sure is the opposite of dying. He’s standing in front you, and you can see his features more clearly, and you want to say it’s Dirk but it’s not. He is but he isn’t. You _know_ who it is but that guy’s _dead_ and this is so obviously a dream that you want to shake yourself awake from. Where are your friends? Why aren’t they waking you up? Like c’mon Dave, we have bigger shit to take care of dude, can’t be conking out on us now, your dumb dreams can wait. 

Looming over you, he speaks, and it almost startles you how clearly your brain digests his words. It causes you to look away, look down, and you shove the fallen strands of your long hair back to the crown of your skull with wobbly hands. 

The words that Dirk had tried to say to you, the conversations John had been carrying with his stupid laugh, had all ghosted over and around you and quickly flew away, far out of the reach of your cerebral cortex. Everything down to the inflection of their voices is escaping you, intermingled with the dust lifting from the meteor, going up and out of sight, each speck eventually swallowed up by the wild stretch of space.

Suddenly, you feel your bed dip, and you scramble to look up again, ‘cause you’re thinking, _shit, i let my guard down and im gonna fucking die, dave get a grip and get your head back in the game, you gotta troy bolton this shit,_ but as quickly as panic had spiked your blood with its grubby little fingers, the feeling dissipated. Kind of. Not that the adrenaline had left your blood yet, you were still shaking like a kid left in the rain. 

But you had expected him to leave. 

When was the last time he sat on your bed? Had he ever? Not that it matters, because this is just some wacked out dream, but you’ve never had a dream like…whatever was going on right now. This is some out-of-character shit and you’re not vibing. 

You let your hair fall again as you settle your hands at your sides, and you wish your limbs would settle the hell down. Even if this wasn’t really him, you didn’t want any version of him to see you like this. You’ve dealt with too many alternate timelines to let your guard down. 

But next thing you know, his hand is looming in front of your face, gliding your hair out of the way of your eyes, and—

No. Nope. This is wrong. Something’s wrong. He’s being nice and quiet and not himself and there is something wrong here. Everything’s kicking back into overdrive and all your brain can relay is _flight flight flight flight._

Half expecting (fully expecting) him to suddenly turn and hit you with his hand so close, you flinch away, voice catching in your throat. 

His name spills from you. You don’t know why. 

“Bro.”

He pulls his hand away. He’s looking at you with zero trace of anything but tiredness and—concern?? Nah. It’s too dark to read him. All you know is that he’s not touching you, not ready to hit you, probably not going to do a damn thing except look at you. 

So you look away. 

There’s no way this is fucking real. 

There’s also no way this fucking monster isn’t still looming somewhere, waiting for you to wake up, so you’re doing your damnedest to squint through the dark and analyze every single fucking blob you can find. Is he in hiding in the corners? Under the tables? In your closet, trying to be funny? 

_where are you you fucking prick_

You’re trembling hard again. With your hands balled against your calves you can feel everything about you struggling to keep its shit contained under your skin. Your eyes feel hot, and oh god, are you seriously crying? Jesus you’re starting to cry. You, Stone Cold Steve Strider, crying because it’s dark and this beast is hiding just to fuck with you, and you’re _not_ home and you’re _not_ safe and your brother—

Lifting an arm, you press your nose against the flat top of your wrist. Your feel your lips quaking. You curse against your skin and the words come out wet and ugly. The bed dips again as Bro, now a wobbly blob in your line of vision, adjusts himself to face you fully. 

“Dave, what happened?”

_shut up shut up youre not bro shut up_

You shake your head at him. Compose yourself, dude. Come on. Even if this _isn’t_ really him, you can’t take any chances. Stop and take a breather. 

But as you try to suck in air to calm yourself, your chest only fills with tension. It hurts. Tears are rolling down your cheeks like it’s a race to the finish line and you’re just trying to cover them up with your hands and sleeves without letting the strain slip from out under your ribs, because you know what this means. This means real crying. Like, babies wailing for their moms to pay attention to them crying. 

Are you a baby? Hell no. 

But as Bro lays a heavy hand on your shoulder, probably to keep you from toppling over because oh man are you starting to lose it, a wisp of a sob slips from your throat. You sound like a bird being choked. It’s ugly and embarrassing and you’re a little glad (only a little) that it’s dark because a harsh blush is creeping across your face and tweaking the tips of your ears. 

As a last resort, you cover your face with your hands. The tears are really coming now, and you think, maybe if you can cup your hands just right you’ll be able to drown your dreamself and wake up. But trying to suck in air through the fold of your hands pressed together only amplifies the fact that you can’t take a single breath with it hitching or wobbling in some way, and you can hear Bro speaking to you slowly, calmly, his hand ( _he wants to hit you, jesus youre such a baby dude)_ smoothing down your back and jesus. Oh, jesus. 

There’s so little keeping you from caving in. His hand, his voice, this weird patience he’s showing ( _this isnt bro, this isnt him)_ , it’s all making the last column crumble. 

You can’t do this. This isn’t right. 

And then—this guy, you swear to god—tells you it’s okay. 

“It’s alright. Just let it out, bud.”

Your brain swallows and digests those words like it hasn’t eaten in weeks, and they taste so good it makes your mouth wobble and lips roll. They taste so good they make you weep. 

His words make you weep. They make you weep so hard you fold over, fists balled against your eyes, letting everything tense and thrumming in your chest unravel and fall into the thick air between you and your brother. All of the noise falling from you, strangles noises wrapped up in harsh ugly sobs. The adrenaline has run its course, leaving you weak and vulnerable and not ready to fight anymore.

You’re suddenly hoping that this isn’t a dream. There’s nothing to fight if this isn’t a dream.

When he puts an arm around you, awkward and unsure but warm and the only thing available to keep you from falling apart and away, you sink into him to instead send your weepy regards through his shoulder. You’re clutching at your sides and you can feel your organs hiccupping. 

He holds you for a while, murmuring words that you can’t hear over your own noise. When you’re dipping from the paroxysm, your horrible sobs tuning down to gasping, trying to get your lungs working again, he lifts his hold on you a little, giving you enough wiggle room to wipe your eyes and breathe a little easier.

“You alright?” he asks again.

Your face feels grossly warm and wet. Like a swamp. Swampface. You rub at your swollen eyelids.

“Hey, Dave.” 

_i mean swampface wouldnt be a bad name. swampface strider._

“Dave.”

_dave swampface strider. superpowers: being moist at all times_

Bro sighs tiredly, releasing you, instead placing his hands on your shoulders.

“Dude. Talk to me.”

_weaknesses: dehumidifiers, damprid, the suns ability to vaporize the only reason for my existence. which is to be swampface_

He snaps his fingers in front of your eyes a couple of times, and the sound makes you jolt a little. 

“Hey, earth to Dave.” His voice grows firm, but is still hoarse with grogginess. “Are you awake?”

…Are you? 

You look down at your hands now resting limp in your lap, wiggling them slowly, watching them through the screen of darkness. Then you glide your eyes over the room, inspecting the walls and corners. 

There’s no one else here. 

You’re alive. 

Still, your response is a slow, quiet, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

You shrug. Everyone knows when they’re not dreaming, but... 

You look down at your hands again, tapping your fingers gently against your leg. Fingertips pressing down on skin through fabric. Trying to feel out if there’s anything you can’t feel, shouldn’t be feeling. But everything checks out.

_youre awake buddy._

“Never mind.”

He’s quiet for a little while. As he repositions himself, pulling his knee up to his chest and letting the other leg hang off the side of your bed, you close your eyes. You’re wiped. 

“Tell me.”

You open an eye to look at him. “Tell you what?”

“You know what.” He combs his fingers through his bangs, pushing them away from his forehead. “You’ve been having nightmares, dude.”

Nightmares. Right.

“And?”

“ _And_ , you’re going to wake up the whole building with the shit you knock over in your sleep.” He quirks a thick eyebrow at you. “Do you remember them?”

Of course you do. Kind of. You know you’re in the game and you know that you’re with your friends and you know that every single time something goes wrong and—

_yea thats a nightmare you ignoramus_

The evidence of Bro sitting near you in your bedroom in Houston on Earth in the middle of the night—the evidence that _this_ is your reality—is becoming too damning.

But the game wasn’t a dream. You couldn’t make that shit up if you tried. The nightmares are just fucked up memories. 

“Kind of,” you mutter eventually. “Not really.” 

He huffs through his nose, but it sounds like a small laugh. “Alright.”

He doesn’t believe you. You’re about to protest, because what does he know, he wasn’t even _there_ , but he silences you by getting up and yawning quietly into the back of his hand.

“Listen dude, it’s…” He twists himself slightly, eyeing the alarm clock on your desk. “Almost five in the morning.” 

You nod, as if that means anything to you. 

“And it doesn’t sound like you want to talk about this right now.”

Your eyes settle elsewhere, and you feel the warm creep of a blush rise again. But not out of embarrassment—you just didn’t expect him to care enough to ask, or even wonder what the hell was going on in your head. The paranoid part of you tickles your mind again, _youre vulnerable hes just going to fuck with you later_ , but you shove it away. 

_just let me have this for once._

He continues. “I need to get the fuck back to sleep. People at work are going crazy without me, so I’m headin’ out tomorrow.” When he turns back to face you, he shoves his hands back into the pockets of his sweatpants. “You gonna be okay, kid?”

The tremors have finally stopped racketing your bones and muscles between the confines of your skin, leaving you exhausted – yet you still can’t settle your mind around the fact that _this_ is Bro, the real deal, the man of the hour, taking the time to talk to you. To acknowledge that something’s wrong. Going so far as to comfort you. 

_just let me have this_

_dude youre fucking up hes doing this on purpose_

_no shut up let me have this just this let me have this_

_youre letting him beat the shit out of you before it even happens i cannot fucking believe—_

_cant i just believe that he gives a shit? just let me believe that he gives a shit ok_

Something in you still expects him to hurt you. No matter how much you try to push the feeling away, it persists in eating away at you and you hate it. 

But you nod, shifting your eyes back to look at him.

“Yeah.”

You think he’s about to step away and finally quit the act and leave you alone, but instead he reaches toward you, placing his large hand on the top of your head. The gesture forces you to raise your head a little and meet his eyes fully. Your exhausted heart is thrumming again—he hasn’t done this since you were little. When you weren’t listening, when you were lying. 

He doesn’t believe you.

You’ve never been a good liar, at least not to him.

“Wake me up if you need anything, alright?” 

You wriggle you head from under his hand. This doesn’t feel right. But you comply with words to appease him. 

“Alright.”

He opens his mouth, ready to continue, maybe to make you pinky promise or something, but he decides against it. Instead, he turns, disappearing into the light of the hallway with a short, too-gentle to _really_ be him, but god, who else can it be, “Sleep tight, kid.”

The bedroom door closes behind him, shutting off the supply to the single sliver of light that had entered your room. 

In the dark, the silence rings uncomfortably in your ears. You try to settle back down in your bed under the blanket, maybe let the after-effects of your fit drag you into sleep, but your mind is still reeling. 

So you dreamt that you were with your friends. That didn’t mean they weren’t real. 

So you dreamt that you were on a meteor flinging millions of miles per hour to a new planet all yours for the taking. Didn’t mean it never happened. 

So your brother is acting all caring and nice and shit after three years of not seeing him, three years of believing that he was dead, after finally coming to terms that he had fucked you up and raised you _wrong_ and treated you _horribly_ and that he _hated your fucking guts_ , hated your _entire fucking existence_ —

You don’t know what to think about that. Actually, you can hardly think about it at all as a headache settles into your cranium, reaching around to bang nauseatingly on your temples. 

_hes fucking with you dude you should have fucking known_

Dragging a pillow over your face, you clamp your eyes shut, trying to quiet yourself and force the headache away. 

You don’t know what to believe. 

On the one hand, there’s no escaping the fact that he did what he did and it fucked you up and that was that. 

On the other hand, you just cried into his shoulder for half an hour and he held you and patiently tried to soothe you out of your fit. On the other hand, he’s been taking care of your bedridden ass for the past week without so much as a complaint. On the other hand, he’s been checking on you frequently during the day, making sure you’re eating and staying hydrated, making sure you’re comfortable enough when he thinks you’re fully asleep and you can feel him fixing the blanket and tucking your hair away out of your face, making sure you’re not a corpse. 

Maybe he’s changed, you think. 

_but why would he change now? why does he give a shit_ now?

You groan through gritted teeth, pressing the pillow closer to muffle the noise.

It takes you a long time to fall back asleep. So long that you have to pretend that you're in the middle of a deep snooze when Bro pokes his head into the room to check on you before leaving for work--whatever his job was this time. He steps in, crossing the room quietly to come near you, and you can feel his eyes on you, maybe assessing if you're really asleep, maybe realizing that you're trying too hard to fake your slumber.

If he knows you're faking, though, he doesn't let on that he knows. Instead, he brushes the back of his fingertips against your forehead, sighing quietly before retracting his hand. He leaves something on the table beside your bed before leaving. Even minutes later, as you hear his truck drive away far below your apartment, as you open your eyes again, you can still feel the slight tickle of where he touched your skin. 

And that's what made a part of you believe he wasn't just fucking with you.

That, and the note he left pinned under a tall glass of water, written in thick red marker as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so it's pretty late and i'm tired but! here it is. i kind of just cranked this one out, so i may go back and make minor edits if i spot any in the future. i've been going through the past chapters and making small edits, but if i edit anything major, i'll let you know.
> 
> i may or may not be hinting at some johndave here but i haven't really decided yet? john will come in soon though! i can't wait to write that goofy kid in. i miss him. 
> 
> expect the next chapter sometime within the week! hmu on my tumblr (spacepuck.tumblr.com) if you want to chat or ask questions :-) and thanks again to you guys for your sweet comments/kudos -- they make me smile.


	6. John: Pester Dave

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 5:15 --

EB: dave?

EB: heh, i guess you’re not actually up!

EB: which makes sense, because it’s like, 7 for you?

EB: even though pesterchum says you’re on. such a liar bro.

EB: sooooooo rude!

EB: heheheh.

EB: guess huge dorks don’t wake up until late.

EB: makes me a pretty cool guy, huh?

EB: cool guys wake up at 5am!

EB: with the birds!! heh

EB: ...

EB: ...i mean, not that i really want to be awake right now. 

EB: it’s soooo boring.

EB: the sun’s hardly up here. 

EB: here on earth.

EB: where we are currently totally really on!!

EB: eheh.

EB: um.

EB: bluh.

EB: i don’t really know what i’m trying to say.

EB: i was hoping that you would actually be online…rose and jade haven’t been on and i need someone to talk to! 

EB: not that anything’s wrong!! i’m just bored!

EB: ...

EB: actually i’m gonna try to go back to sleep. 

EB: i’ll talk to you later!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 5:25 --

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 6:03 --

EB: bluuuuuh!

EB: so the whole sleeping thing isn’t working out. looks like i’m in this for the long haul.

EB: i guess i’m just…i don’t know dude.

EB: i haven’t been sleeping well really. like i keep having these dreams about, you know.

EB: ...

EB: anyway...

EB: this is so lame.

EB: bluuuuuh.

EB: just, uh, message me when you get on okay?

EB: feels like it’s been forever dude.

EB: and maybe it has?

EB: i don’t really know.

EB: anyway. 

EB: see you.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 6:10 --

You lean back into your desk chair, rubbing your sore eyes with the heels of your palms. The sun is striking through the window behind you, creating a harsh glare on your computer screen and illuminating the sparse collection of dust that had settled overnight. Your dad would surely swipe it all away later while he thought you weren’t paying attention. 

He’s been at home a lot recently—he had refused to leave your side for a full week after you had woken up, calling out of work to tend to your sudden return to earth. While you were initially wary of everything, from the softness of your bed to the various medical-looking things lying around to the water in the bath, his help was more or less mandatory. Whatever you had woken up from had left you weak in all your limbs, so you could stumble about five feet before needing to either drop to the floor for a solid ten minutes or let him guide you where you needed to go. Despite you being much bigger than you were at thirteen, his fatherly strength doesn’t seem to have waned any.

The clock on your desk casts a harsh neon green 6:14 onto your eyes. Your poor, sore, sleepy eyes. Dad had started to point out the darkening circles hugging your bottom lids, teetering on the edge of trying to give you some space while also totally trying to get you to open up to him about why your sleeping schedule was suddenly so sporadic. No longer his little boy who (he believed) went to bed at 10PM and rose at 7. Granted, the “coma” (you still refuse to believe it—you stick your fingers up to create air quotes whenever the word crosses you, much to the disdain of your dad) probably knocked you for a loop enough, if it were true. 

Still, those dreams would be enough to wake anyone up. 

_If_ they were dreams. 

Yeah.

You make yourself idle on Pesterchum and push yourself away from your desk. Using the back of your heels, you roll the chair close to your bed again and flop yourself back into your cave of blankets and pillows. 

As you’re settling back into bed, squeezing your eyes shut to keep the sun from grabbing at them with its rudely bright rays (you’d shake your fist at it in contempt if you had the energy), you hear Dad waking quietly down the hall. You listen to the shower running and his faint low hum. It was probably that Bing Crosby song that he always used to sing under his breath when he cooked, but you can’t recall the name.

Frustration boils under your skin as you try to get more comfortable, but you just can’t get back to sleep. So you lay there with your eyes squeezed shut and face pressed against the pillow, hoping that maybe by pretend-sleeping you’ll actually drift back off. 

When you were little you used to fake-sleep all the time to make Dad believe that you had actually gone to bed when you were supposed to, when you had _actually_ just jumped off of the computer in a panic from hearing him walk upstairs. But in the wait for him to check on you—he would go into his room first, usually, probably to grab a pipe and set things out for work the next morning—you would just end up falling asleep! No amount of apologies and excuses made your online friends feel any better after suddenly abandoning them. 

Your mind is reeling in a sleepy, jittery sort of way when your dad opens the door slowly. On cue, you drop fully into your fake slumber, relaxing your shoulders and slowing your breathing. You don’t even have to do it, but it’s automatic. The lingering wisps of childhood take hold of you like muscle memory. 

The sturdy sound of his dress shoes against your wood floor pad closer, but with your back to him you can’t sense much else. You can smell the earthy remnants of his morning tobacco still wafting around him; the scent was probably permanently embedded in his collection of button-downs and slacks. 

He moves your computer chair slightly out of the way, just enough for him to loom over you and press a brief kiss to your hair. You hear him set something down on the top of your dresser before leaving, announced by the gentle click of your bedroom door. You listen to him walk down the stairs, open and close the front door, and in a moment’s time, his car is rumbling away into the horizon…

When you wake again, it’s just past 9 and Pesterchum’s far-off telltale pings are begging for attention.

Slowly, you get up, squinting at your screen before dragging yourself out your bedroom door to the bathroom. You would usually poke and prod at your face in the mirror, but you weren’t feeling it today. Not like anyone would see you—you and your long, luxurious black locks that had probably formed into a hectic and tangled bird’s nest overnight. Whatever! Now you know what Jade feels like, you guess. Or, felt like, at least. 

No, feels. Definitely present tense. 

When you re-enter your room, you spot a note on your dresser. You glance down at it as you nudge the door closed with your foot. 

SON.

GOOD MORNING. I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL.

I HAVE BEEN CALLED AWAY TO WORK, SO I APOLOGIZE FOR LEAVING YOU HOME ALONE AGAIN. I WILL BE BACK AROUND NOON TO CHECK ON YOU.

IN THE MEANTIME, PLEASE BE SAFE AND TAKE THINGS SLOWLY. YOU HAVE GAINED SOME STRENGTH BACK, AND I AM PROUD OF YOU, BUT PLEASE REFRAIN FROM PUSHING YOURSELF. 

DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL ME FOR ANY REASON.

You grin a little. Good to know that the fake sleeping still fools him.

Pesterchum continues to alert you of unread messages, so you plop back down in your chair and roll back to your desk. After setting yourself to online, you ready yourself for the wall of red text awaiting you. 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 8:58 --

TG: jesus dick dude

TG: sorry didnt know you were missing this fine strider mug so bad

TG: would have totally hopped onto the egbert train earlier

TG: but youre not the only one trying to get a piece of this

TG: gotta heed to the other dick-grabbers first

TG: first come first serve

TG: you know how it is man

TG: so go wait in the back of the line and if you ask nicely ill sign your tits for you

TG: so you can show them off to your girlfriends and theyll swoon

TG: swoon like a motherfucker 

TG: just dont show your dad 

TG: ill be your dirty little secret 

TG: tyson ritter doesnt have shit on dave strider 

TG: even though i cant top his alluring lopsided smile 

TG: ...

TG: shit ok dont listen to the all american rejects dont even think about tyson ritter 

EB: the all-american rejects suck dude.

TG: first of all hey man

TG: second of all you wound me

TG: have you listened to move along??

EB: unfortunately!

TG: ive been listening to this album for two days straight 

TG: really brings a dude back to the fifth grade

EB: thank god i skipped the fifth grade then.

TG: yeah yeah youre smart who cares 

TG: anyway hows it been

EB: kind of shitty!

EB: my dad won’t let me go anywhere so i’ve been trapped at home for, i dunno, a week and a half?

TG: a week and a half huh

EB: yeah!

TG: interesting

EB: why is that interesting?

TG: nothing man i just havent seen you online until now

EB: oh my eyes were kind of wonky when i woke up i guess?

EB: they were fine after like three days though! but you know my dad.

EB: no computer or bright lights for extended periods of time bluh bluh bluh.

EB: but he’s been off at work for the past few days so i took my chances :) 

TG: wow badass

TG: yeah bro finally hopped off my dick and fucked off to work

TG: or wherever

TG: doesnt matter if i wanted to go anywhere though

TG: ive got fifteen flights of stairs between me and civilization 

EB: and?

TG: and i cant really walk well or some shit 

TG: its no biggie though im no stranger to my own room 

EB: wow are you a paraplegic now?

TG: no numbnuts i can still walk around 

TG: just not for very long or anything

EB: oh! yeah i understand.

EB: my legs have gotten better but my one arm is kind of

EB: well

EB: its betraying me and it sucks.

TG: oh no john are you a monoplegic 

EB: shut up dude! it was a mistake geez.

EB: it’s just weak and stupid.

TG: whatd you do throw your wrist out from jerking off too hard

EB: dave! 

TG: its ok man touching your nono spot is totally normal

EB: jesus christ.

TG: yeah jesus christ probably touched his dick too

TG: totally thought about those apostles

TG: mm judas yeah 

TG: betray me again you slut

EB: shut up dave! 

TG: you gotta know your bible stories john

TG: be a good little christian boy

EB: first of all, jewish.

EB: second, this is definitely not what i wanted to talk about today.

TG: you buckled into the strider rocketship man

TG: signed a contract and everything because they dont let just any old chump into outer space

TG: gotta deal with the consequences of your actions

EB: dave please.

EB: can we talk jesus' dick some other time?

TG: guess so

TG: only because you asked so nicely

EB: thank god. 

You slouch back in your chair for a moment, tucking your hair behind your ears…only for the thick strands to fall back around your face. 

Honestly, you can’t think of any good reason why you woke up with hair down to your armpits. Last you remember it was a shaggy mop that only barely threatened to surpass your ears—now you likened yourself to a Disney princess. Maybe if Mulan had wilder hair…

EB: okay i have a serious question.

TG: shoot

EB: how long is your hair?

TG: hahahaha oh man

TG: shit you not i look like i just got accepted into a sorority 

TG: they almost turned me down since im a bit flat-chested but man

TG: i think they saw the blond hair and swooned right the fuck over to that acceptance letter

TG: or maybe its because my ass looks great in my booty shorts

TG: you know the ones that say bad bitch on the back

EB: i have no idea what you're talking about. 

TG: oh man ill have to introduce you to my bad bitch shorts

TG: but yeah i have no clue where this shit came from

EB: me neither!

EB: oh man dude.

EB: can i see it?

TG: are we going back to talking about dick egbert

TG: because ive gotta say i really lost my boner when you told me to stop talking about jesus

TG: so it doesnt look too pretty right now but i could def work some angles

EB: maybe some other time, but i'm talking about your hair, dumbass.

TG: oh right

TG: do you want a totally not shitty selfie or i dunno

TG: i guess we could cam or something

EB: does pesterchum do that now?

TG: sure does

TG: egbert please tell me youre not still using version 6

EB: heheheh, well....

TG: jesus how are we even still talking

TG: update that shit and then talk to me

You suppose you shouldn’t have ignored Pesterchum’s constant update reminders. 

With some fiddling around, you update to the most recent version that your current operating system could handle and fuss with the camera settings. 

EB: okay! all set. 

TG: great

TG: prepare to be amazed dude

EB: my body is ready :)

EB: oh by the way, my voice is kind of messed up! 

EB: some other stupid “coma” business.

TG: huh

You click on the little camera icon on the bottom corner of the window. A black window overlays your chat, and soon it shows the bedroom you had become acquainted with only through pictures and brief in-game encounters. 

But no Dave. 

“Uh, Dave?” you rasp. You try to clear your throat, knowing it won’t fix anything. 

A figure appears from the side. Dave’s tugging a thick hoodie over himself, pulling its hood away from his head. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”

It’s not until he sits down in front of his computer that you see the mess of blond balled into a haphazard bun on top of his head. There’s a mess of scraggly pieces that he didn’t bother to pull back and doesn’t bother moving from his face. 

“Holy shit, dude,” you laugh. 

“Holy shit yourself. What the fuck is going on with your hair?”

You laugh behind your hand. “You look like Cinderella!” 

He gestures at himself, particularly at his hoodie and sweatpants. “Obviously ready for the ball. Gotta find my Prince Charming, make a steady income, have our 2.5 kids.”

You lean your chin on your hands, elbows on the desk. Grinning, you ask, “What does it look like when it’s down?”

“Wow, kinky.”

Before you can tell him to shut up, he reaches up and searches through the tangles with his fingers. He tugs at the elastic band struggling to keep it all together, and the bun unfolds and drops around his shoulders. While he shakes out some of the tangles with his hands, he frowns.

“How the fuck does Jade deal with all this shit?”

“No idea! And your hair’s a lot thinner than hers, too.” It really was thin—like a golden wavy river. “Like a golden wavy river.”

“Wow, gay.”

“You’re gay.”

“The news that shocked no one. Sorry John Egbert, we’re going to have to fire you from this news station, because the people just don’t want to hear about facts they already know. They like real news, you know, the nitty-gritty shit.” He drops his hands and shoves them into his hoodie pocket, leaning back into his chair. “Your hair looks like hers, though. You can be the stand-in Jade until she makes an appearance.”

“Oh come on, I don’t look _that_ much like her.”

“Isn’t she your sister or something?”

“Well, yeah—”

“We could just shove you in a dress and call it a day. And call you Jade.”

He smiles faintly while you become a little flustered. 

“Yeah, okay, well. Where is Jade, anyway?” you ask. You try again to comb your hair from your face, but it refuses to leave you alone. “Have you heard from her?”

“Not a fuckin’ word.” His smile slides away. “She hasn’t been online since I woke up.”

“Which was?”

He peers at something on his wall—a calendar, maybe—and you can catch the side of his eye. “Two weeks ago.”

“Huh.” You fidget, clearing your throat again. It’s starting to feel pretty sore. “I’m gonna type stuff for a while, dude.”

“Alright.”

EB: bluh i just want my voice back.

“Yeah, it sounds like shit. What happened?”

Leaning a little closer to your webcam, you stretch your neck up for him to see the light red horizontal line above your jugular notch. You even do the service of dragging your finger under it.

“Damn dude. What’s that from?” 

You lean back again to type.

EB: my dad told me i had to have a tube shoved into my neck or something.

“What?”

EB: couldn’t breathe apparently!

EB: heheh, how ironic is that?

EB: doesn’t that just blow the lid off of all of your ironic endeavors?

EB: i think yes.

“Yeah, that’s pretty goddamn ironic actually. I think you’ve got me beat, dude.”

You grin at him. 

EB: oh, have you heard from rose?

EB: i haven’t seen her online either.

He shakes his head. “Nah. From what I can tell she’s awake, though.”

EB: how do you know?

“I’m pretty sure Bro keeps in touch with her mom. For whatever reason.” He gathers his hair back up and ties the band around it, forming a sloppy lump. “I didn’t know they even knew each other. But I’ve heard him say Rose’s name a few times over the phone.”

EB: i mean, rose is a common name...

EB: could it be a different rose?

“I mean he’ll say the name Roxy in the same breath so, I dunno man. Seems kind of damning.”

EB: not really!

EB: roxy is kind of a...uh...

EB: i mean he seems like the kind of guy to work with someone named roxy!

“Jesus, Egbert.” He slides a hand under his shades to pinch the bridge of his nose in what you guess is frustration. It pulls a laugh from you. “Would you say, ‘How is Rose doing, is she okay, are her eyes still fucked up?’ to a porn actress?”

Before you’re able to type a response, he holds up his hands to stop you, letting his shades drop back fully onto his face.

“Okay, _you_ probably would. Bro doesn’t give a shit about the personal lives of the people he works with.”

EB: hmm, i guess you’re right.

EB: her eyes though?

“Don’t ask me, I have no clue.”

EB: you haven’t asked?

He falls silent for a moment. Then, with a short sigh from his nose, he says, “I don’t really want to talk to the guy.”

EB: not even to ask about your friend?

EB: your sister??

He sighs again, but louder this time, with a bit of a melodramatic edge. “It’s complicated.”

EB: complicated like an avril lavigne song or 

“More complicated than an Avril song, dude.”

You frown, but he’s not looking at you. He’s toying with the loose strands around his cheeks, shifting his legs to get comfortable, doing anything to avoid paying his full attention to your conversation.

EB: is he still being a dick to you??

EB: i’ll kick his ass if he’s being a dick to you.

“Oh please, he’d send you flying back to Washington with an imprint of his foot on your ass in a heartbeat. Besides, he’s not being a dick.”

EB: oh.

EB: then…what’s going on?

He shrugs. “Honestly, I have no fuckin’ clue. He’s being…” He tongues a word around in his mouth for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “…nice. Like, fatherly and shit nice.”

EB: uhhhh.

EB: what does that entail?

“Like, checking in on me every few hours, getting me food—and it’s mostly real food, with like vegetables and fruit and shit—leaving me notes, trying to talk to me, not calling me an insufferable prick when he _does_ choose to talk to me—”

EB: ummm.

“—asking me if I’m okay _all the time_ , helping me out with shit even though I make a point to not ask him for help—god, that’s so fucking _demeaning_ when he does that, Jesus Christ—even like…” 

He pauses, stopping his hand gestures to gather his thoughts. When he slides his shades up to the top of his head and presses his hands against his face in frustration, he mumbles. You have no idea what he said. 

“What?” you ask aloud. Honestly, it’s making you kind of uncomfortable to see _him_ uncomfortable, so you fidget with your hands awkwardly in your lap. 

“He, like. God.” He pulls his hands away from his face, but doesn’t move to put his shades back in place. Geez, the bags under his eyes are worse than yours. “Okay, you mentioned having nightmares and shit, right?”

“Um—”

“Okay, so apparently I get them real bad. Like, screaming and throwing shit bad. And obviously he wakes up because he’s a room away.”

“Okay. And?”

“And he like…I dunno, he actually…”

You can only raise your eyebrows at him expectantly, but again, his eyes are elsewhere, staring down at his desk. Finally, he sighs and slouches back into his chair real low, one hand gliding over his forehead to hold some stray hairs to the top of his head.

“He actually gives a shit,” he says miserably.

A part of you wants to laugh, but another aches. 

“Well, isn’t that…good?” you ask. “Like, wouldn’t it be worse if he didn’t care?”

“That’s the _thing_ , dude. It would be _normal_ if he didn’t care.”

You fidget some more. “I mean—isn’t it good that he’s not acting normal? Isn’t normal Bro a huge asshole?”

His hands are pressed against his face again and he groans. “Dude, I don’t know.” 

You can’t tell if you should be getting a kick out of him being so uncomfortable or ask “who are you and what have you done with the self-proclaimed cool Dave Strider?” Regardless, he’s losing his “cool” more than he had ever let on.

“I mean, the answer is yes. Yes, he’s an asshole, and it’s good that he’s not being a huge asshole—”

“You don’t get it, John.” He sits up straight again, moving his shades to his desk. He looks exhausted. “Look, yeah, it’s nice and dandy that he gives a damn now, and I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. But I have this really shitty feeling in my chest that this is some big ironic stint, and that he’s gonna get bored and will eventually turn around and beat the shit out of me like good old times.”

You can’t think of a response. Instead, he sighs, waving a dismissive hand at you. 

“Just, don’t worry about it, alright man? It’s fine,” he says. “I’ll ask him about Rose later.”

“I just think…I don’t know, maybe he’s turned around?” You speak slowly, trying to gauge his emotions, but even without the shades he’s hard to read. “It’s been years, dude.”

He shrugs. 

“I mean, I know you don’t have the greatest relationship with him or anything, but maybe you should…just try talking to him? Being that it seems like he’s actually trying to talk to you for reals now.” 

“…I guess.” 

You smile a little, if only at yourself. 

“And if he fucks you up, I swear I’ll beat the shit out of him. Scout’s honor.”

He finally lets out a small laugh. “Fat chance, dude.” 

“Oh come on, I could totally land a punch on him now or something.”

“Doubt it.”

The two of you talk for a little longer. He asks about your dad, you tell him he’s the same old same old. You ask him about Texas, he tells you, swimming in his sweatpants and hoodie, that it’s “hot and horrible like always. I love it.”

Soon enough, your stomach is growling painfully, and you can hear your dad’s car pulling into the driveway. 

“Hey, I’ve gotta eat and stuff. Also my dad just got home, and I still don’t know if he wants me on the computer.”

He waves you off. “Go, man. I should probably eat and stuff, too.”

You say your goodbyes and end the call. After setting yourself to idle and putting your computer into sleep mode, you slowly pad downstairs. Dad is already in the kitchen, grabbing some things from the fridge.

“Hey, Dad.” 

“Hello, son.” He turns his head to ghost a quick smile at you before turning back to making lunch. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.” 

The two of you fall into silence as you prepare your meals. He makes his whatever sandwich, you create a masterpiece consisting of Cheerios and milk. There’s really no contest, you think.

As you both sit at the table to eat, you watch him read some business papers, his sandwich in one hand and highlighter in the other. You keep thinking back to Dave—or, really, you keep thinking back to Bro and Rose’s mom. 

It’s once you’re done with your cereal and sitting at the table for too long that you finally ask. 

“Hey, Dad? You don’t know Dave’s brother, do you? Or Rose’s mom?”

He peers up at you from his paper, which he has highlighted sparingly, with slightly raised brows. “Why, I do. Where did that question come from?”

“You do?” You start to stand, grabbing your bowl. “I mean, I was just talking to Dave, and he said that his brother was talking to Rose’s mom about Rose, so I, you know—”

“Sit, John. We’re still speaking.”

You smile sheepishly, mumbling a small apology as you sit. Suddenly, you’re feeling as though you shouldn’t have asked. 

“I’ve known Dirk for quite a while, actually.” He’s organizing his papers neatly, setting them on top of his briefcase. “Or, I should say Mr. Strider, I suppose. His father was a close friend of mine.” 

Oh, no, never mind. You’re glad you asked. You lean your elbows onto the table in interest.

“His father? Dave never mentioned having a dad. Or a mom, actually.”

Your father goes quiet with a small hum. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, son. I feel as though these are facts that Dave would have told you himself.”

“Not really. He’s kind of private.”

A small chuckle escapes him. “Well, I suppose it runs in the family, then. Although I hope Dirk has discussed these matters with Dave.” He sounds a little annoyed, to which you raise a brow. “Dirk is rather…stubborn. And private to a fault. He always has been.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Oh, since he was in high school, I believe. A few years before you and Dave were born. We didn’t become close until he was well out of college, though.”

You snort, and your dad looks a little shocked. “Bro went to college?”

“Oh, yes.” A look of pure disdain falls over him while you continue to smile behind a hand. “He’s quite intelligent, really. He just chose to pursue…other endeavors.”

 _my dad knows about dave’s bro’s puppet porn. oh my god._ You stifle your laughter, but the flush overcoming your cheeks is enough to tip him off.

“Oh, John, forgive me. I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I’m not sure that Dirk—Mr. Strider would approve.”

“It’s okay, Dad. I won’t tell Dave.” You smile at him, to which he gives an embarrassed smile in return. It actually makes you feel weird, knowing that there’s this whole other side to Dave’s brother that you never let enter into the realm of consideration. “What about Rose’s mom?”

“Ah, I’ve known Ms. Lalonde for a while as well. Not as long as Dirk, but since you kids were quite young.”

“And how do you know her?”

“She’s a close relative of the owner of the business I work at. It turns out I’ve met her in person a number of times, but never knew. It wasn’t until she was across the country that we connected personally.”

Geez, everything’s about this business. You actually don’t know where your dad works—it seems like a normal office job for a normal business for normal people—but it was…unsettling? Unsettling that he knew the relatives of your best friends before you were even born. 

But you don’t press it. It’s not that important. Besides, he’s looking a little wistful while you’re on the subject of Rose’s mom.

An uncomfortable feeling settles deep in your stomach, but you can’t pinpoint why.

“So…do you know if Rose is okay? I just talked to Dave, but—”

“You were on the computer?”

Shit. He hadn’t caught on the first time you mentioned talking to Dave, so you thought you were in the clear. Wrong. You stammer a little, totally caught, but he raises a hand to stop you. 

“I would have preferred if we had talked about it beforehand, but it seems as though your vision is no longer impaired. We should go to the doctor soon to make sure, but until then, limit yourself and take frequent breaks. Understood?”

You nod, giving a small grin. “Sorry, Dad. But, uh, Rose hasn’t been online. And Dave mentioned that he overhead Bro—uh, Dirk—maybe talking to Rose’s mom. He said something about her eyes?”

“Oh, dear.” He tries giving you a comforting smile, but it seems a little forced. “Don’t worry about it too much, son. Roxanne has explained to me that Rose’s vision is a little impaired, much like yours was, but it’s taking her a little bit longer to adjust. I’m sure you’ll be speaking to her again in no time.”

Roxanne. He says her name delicately. The uncomfortable feeling grows, and you decide to change the subject. Besides, the way he talked about Bro is still bothering you. 

Actually, Bro had always made you kind of fidget. You had never met him in person—not the Bro that raised Dave, anyway—but the way Dave talked about him, idolizing him and thinking he was the hottest shit on planet earth made you question him. He never sat well with you. And the way Dave spoke of him earlier, well, it solidified your fears that the guy had actually fucked your best friend up. 

So, your Dad calling him a “close friend” makes you more than a little confused. Maybe even a little anxious.

He’s already packed his papers away in his briefcase and is setting his dish in the sink, rinsing it off when you follow him into the kitchen with your bowl in hand. Watching the milk slosh makes you feel queasy. 

“Um, Dad?” 

“Hm?”

“Is Dirk…a good person? Like, generally?”

Your dad lets out a small hum. Before answering, he takes the bowl from your hands, rinsing it. “I believe so. Although I’m sure you have reason to believe otherwise.”

He gives you no time to question. He’s checking his watch, then quickly toweling his hands dry. “I’m afraid I must return to work now, son.” He smiles gently. “I believe I may have said more than I should have. But we’ll talk more about the matter later, if you still feel like it. Does that sound alright?”

You nod a little, and he presses a small kiss to the top of your hair before rushing out the door. 

You have the feeling he wouldn’t be telling you more, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *squints* this chapter took too long. 
> 
> anyways, the semester's over! i really wanted to take a break from the striders (as much as i love them, they're so emotionally heavy to write sometimes :-( but that's my own fault lmao), so i wrote from john's pov this time! i think this is actually the first time i've written from his pov, and i think just the first time i've written him in general. so whoooo knows how i did. but it was nice to write some softer banter, heh.
> 
> i'm not sure how frequently i'll be writing from non-strider povs, but i really liked writing this chapter! so maybe more often than not.
> 
> if there are any errors, just let me know--i don't want to look at this anymore. (but i'll probably give it another couple read-throughs soon enough.)
> 
> hmu at spacepuck.tumblr.com if you want to chat! thank you all again for the comments/kudos/bookmarks/subs :')
> 
> update 5/21: LMAO i totally just realized....that john would know bro's name......wow.......made a slight edit regarding that.


	7. Bro: Get to Work

God damn, does it feel good to go back to work. And you mean that in the most half-sincere way possible.

The difference between shooting smuppet porn in the cramped confines of your living room alone, with the shitty makeshift backdrops (you can sew, but anything more than your Microsoft Paint masterpieces is outside your realm of expertise) and trying not to get another complaint from the downstairs neighbor, and shooting smuppet porn in an actual staging area where your wildest smuppet dreams can come to fruition with half the single-handed labor is astounding to say the least. You decided to make the switch a year and a half ago, after you had taken your year-long hiatus from the job to do some soul-searching (yes—being drunk on a beach in Monterrico and cursing at the birds counts as soul-searching). To say the least, you were getting antsy with the project. You had ideas that just weren’t possible with your at-home set-up, and you’ll be damned if you weren’t mulling the idea of making your pornographic creations even _more_ ironic by making them dazzlingly professional over in your head for months. 

Unfortunately, you’ve never really worked well with other people—you may have fired one too many people because they didn’t get your visions exactly right, but whatever, you were boss around here and they knew it when they applied—so while you’re glad to be out of the house and doing something other than sitting around, you get a headache just walking into Stage 9. 

Still, despite your employees being more irritating than you remember, you go to work every day for two weeks in a row. You tell them what to do, and for the most part they work smoothly. Your assistant—bless her soul, she’s the only truly useful person you hired—hands over the ibuprofen and takes over when you tell her to. She’s competent and bossy and knows how to get everyone else to get their shit done, and more importantly, she doesn’t ask you any questions. Not that she would be afraid to ask you anything, but it’s more that she doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask why her boss absconds for weeks at a time. You’re pretty sure she wouldn’t even come to your funeral if you died. 

She’s your favorite employee. 

So when you step out of the staging area after glancing over a red-emblazoned text, patting down your pockets to feel for your wallet and keys, she stops you with her clipboard slapped against your chest. 

“You leavin’ me hanging again, Strider?”

“Yep.”

She takes the clipboard back into both hands, eyes glazing over the list of things to get done. “Anything else I need to know about?”

You take a swift glance over the room. “Tell Ed that he needs to fix the backdrop.”

“Looks like shit?”

“Yeah. Ask him if he’s ever seen _Midnight in Paris_ and if he hasn’t, kick him out and get Jo to fix it.” 

A smirk ghosts over her, then promptly disappears. “Got it. Any new shipments I need to worry about?”

“Not until tomorrow.”

She pencils something in and you’re about to leave before she calls your name again. “Strider.”

When you look back at her, she looks as though she’s about to say something, but she quickly waves you off. “Never mind. I’ll text you if anything comes up.”

You nod, muttering a quick “See you, Sam” to her before finally walking out to your truck, squinting down at the red text on your phone as you go. 

hey assdick dont panic but one of your shitty fireworks went off and the kitchens on fire

help a bro out

Remember when you said you were only half-sincere about being glad to go back to work?

Now, you’re not an idiot. You know there’s no fire and you know that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to set fireworks off even if you _did_ still keep them in the dishwasher, which you don’t. In fact, he’s probably being a shit and sitting on the couch catching up on video games he’s missed out on. 

On the other hand, that “probably” makes you a little nervous. Just a little. You’re not above admitting that Dave definitely got his no-panic deadpan cries for help from you and utilizes them when something’s actually wrong. 

So, Striders are prideful. Water is wet. 

When you pull into the apartment’s parking lot and notice a) the lack of dramatic smoke billowing from your windows and b) zero firetrucks or anyone outside remotely panicking, you give Dave a small mental critique for not even trying to stage a fire. He got you out of work, he might as well have made it exciting. 

You take your calm and collected ass up to the thirtieth floor and can hear the television muttering from behind your door. As you enter, Dave picks his head up from his supine position on the couch momentarily before dropping it again. His fingers fidget over the game controller in his hands. 

“Sup,” he offers. 

You nudge the door closed with your foot. “Left work early.”

“Thought I set the apartment on fire?” 

“Not really, but I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“That hurts, man.” You toss your keys onto the kitchen counter. One of his feet jostles in response. 

“Just stating facts.” You lean against the counter and cross your arms. “So, did you call me back here for something important or is this some plan to watch my company crash and burn so we can kick it under the Fred Hartman?” 

“You’re loaded. You could retire now and your great-great-grandchildren would still be riding on the coattails of your hard-earned crusty puppet money.”

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“Riding on those coattails like Hansel and Gretel eating up the breadcrumb trail. Hungry for that inheritance, straight up shoving the cash down their throats, unknowing of the horrors that underlie that sweet dough.”

He sits up, rolling his neck to pop it. He’s trying to cover up the fact that he sucks at _Dead Space 2_ by obscuring your view of the television.

“So it’s safe to assume that you’re not dying.”

He shrugs. “Is it?”

“Yeah, it is. So why am I here?” 

He falls silent. You watch him fidget with his legs, pretend to get too invested in the game, maybe hoping that you’ll just go away. You wait for him to say something, but he just breathes out long sighs from his nose and sucks them back in. You keep staring into the back of his skull. The silence falls heavier the longer you wait.

 _That’s it. That’s all he wanted to say to me after two and a half weeks of the silent treatment_.

Like hell you’re putting up with this no-talking thing again. 

“Spill,” you say. He sinks a little lower into the futon, as if trying to hide the fact that he’s there. “If you think I’m going to let this go, I’ve got some bad news for you”

“That’s pretty fucking lame of you,” he mutters. 

“Dave.” 

“I mean I’m just saying, you could have totally ignored me and things would have been fine. Real peachy. Like Georgia peach peachy, all sweet and juicy and shit. You said it yourself, you didn’t think I _actually_ started a fire, what’s the big—”

“Let me get this straight. You don’t talk to me for three weeks, and now you expect me to think that this little-shit-cries-wolf thing _doesn’t_ have any underlying motivation.” 

He shuts up at that, and boy does he look small. He pauses the game after dying the fourth time. 

“It’s really nothing, Bro.” 

You turn to the cabinets behind you, reaching for a glass. This shit is exasperating. “Yeah, well, I call bullshit, but whatever.” Gotta keep your cool.

“Whatever,” he echoes, unpausing the game. 

\---

Alright, so maybe you thought you got over snooping through Dave’s shit after there was nothing left to look for, but here you are, looming over his computer like a mother concerned over possible internet pedophiles trying to snatch up her daughter. 

He just got in the shower, so you have a solid twenty minutes to have a look-around. The case entitled, “Why Is Dave Being Fucking Weird This Time, Volume IX”. Soon the proverbial stack of manila folders that you kept in your mental crawlspace would crack the ceiling and send shit flying everywhere. But you kept that shit contained, even the couple of cold cases that have gone dusty and stale. 

You almost reach up to adjust your cap in a mystery detective-type manner, but you abstain. Just this once. 

It doesn’t even matter, because the clues fall straight into your hands as a block of red and blue text pops up. You know the red is Dave. You have no idea who this blue kid is, but they’re pestering the fuck out of you, even though Dave’s Pesterchum is set to away. 

You scroll up through their past conversation. 

TG: alright god damn dude ill ask him later 

EB: isn’t this kind of urgent though? this seems important.

TG: nah man relax

TG: your old mans probably just got the wrong guy 

TG: you know how old men are

TG: forgetting what they ate this morning forgetting what day it is

EB: my dad’s not that old!

TG: forgetting that the dude he thinks hes talking about totally definitely isnt the dude hes actually talking about

EB: he’s only like, 45!

TG: ok but let me remind you

TG: youre my dad

EB: we’re not going through this again.

TG: daddy please dont abandon me and make me have new parents 

TG: daddy ill be good

EB: lalalalalalala i can’t hear you over how dumb you’re being!

TG: daddy stop trying to pawn me off

You scroll down some more to skip over the bullshit.

TG: im just saying

TG: bro would never talk to your dad 

TG: hes like a goddamn rune

TG: a secret language that only experts can unlock

TG: but alas there are no experts only lowly peons who try to understand the mere essence of bro strider

TG: and also no one cares about unlocking his ancient language anymore so they gave the riddle up years ago

TG: so either your dad is too lame for bros tastes or your dad wouldnt give a shit about him

EB: first of all, i think your brother is too lame for my dad’s tastes.

EB: second, so why does he talk to rose’s mom? my dad knows her in person!

Oh jesus, this is Egbert's kid, isn’t it.

TG: pretty sure bro is a closet alcoholic on top of being a rune

TG: see they have so much in common 

TG: and just because roses mom gets around doesnt mean that bro or your dad does 

EB: i don’t know dave...

EB: they all seem like friends to me! 

TG: dude youre probably just falling for another one of your dads shitty pranks 

It’s the fucking Egbert kid. 

How fucking typical, James running his big fatherly mouth off to his son about irrelevant things the kid doesn’t need to know.

And how typical, John being just like his dad and echoing everything that he doesn’t need to know to his best friend.

You read a little faster, anxious of what James may have unearthed. 

TG: oh yes son who im so proud of i absolutely know bro strider 

TG: hes the nicest young man in the world

TG: he graduated summa cum laude from fuckhole university 

TG: majored in home ec and being a sick cool dude

EB: don’t forget the part about you having parents!

Oh Jesus.

Oh _hell_ no.

TG: alright listen

TG: if for some whacked up reason i find out that i did have parents

TG: which i didnt btw

TG: i will personally write you a tome telling you how much of an idiot i am free of charge

EB: but dave i already know that you’re an idiot.

TG: cant you see how much this tome is obviously not going to be in your grubby future hands 

EB: just ask him!

EB: i’ll be here.

EB: waiting to hear how much of an idiot you are :) 

If you were a lower man, you would be destroying everything in sight in a straight path to Washington to dig James Egbert’s grave.

Instead, you put the computer back into sleep mode, just as you had found it. 

And you calmly walk back out into the living room. 

Calmly walk out of the apartment and up to the roof. 

_Very calmly_ take out your phone and dial James’ number. 

And then you dial again. And again, only receiving the tell-tale “my ass is talking to another person right now” tone until, finally, he answers. He sounds cheery and normal. Your blood is boiling. 

“Hello, Dirk, I—”

Deep breath.

“Egbert, you listen to me because I’m not fucking around here. I am going to drag you by your goddamn back molars across this entire country until you have so much dirt and shit in your mouth that you won’t be able to spew another goddamn word for the rest of your miserable existence. You will be so filled up with the history of America’s hitchhiking trails that you won’t even remember your own name, because by the time I get around to dragging you to the fucking Atlantic you will have become so dependent on the heroin and cocaine that you’ve lapped up from the mud on the side of the road that you won’t be able to function. And right before I toss you in to let you sink to the bottom to get eaten by sharks, I’m going to kick you so hard your bones shatter and I triple-backflip into fucking Atlantic City, where I’ll stay until I’m damn sure that no one’s looking for your sorry ass.”

The line is silent. You’re almost afraid that he hung up on you until you hear a quiet, “Holy shit, Dirky” come through. 

Roxy. 

You let out a harsh sigh, pulling your phone away from you for a moment so neither of them gets the full effect of how angry you are. Still gotta seem cool. Still have to put on that good ol’ Strider charm. 

Because telling someone that you’re going to brutally murder them is charming.

You have the looming feeling that you’re going to get sucker-punched via a three-way call.

It’s still silent when you press your ear to the phone again. Finally, James speaks up, bemused. 

“Dirk, is something the matter?”

“Yeah Dirk, you sound a lil’ pissy today.” 

You bite the inside of your cheek. You could soar straight out of Texas fueled only by the rage building under your skin.

“Let me just say that it’s been really nice knowing you, Egbert, but my god, did you shove shit into my eyes.”

“I don’t understand—”

“I mean, really, you’re cutting me deep here, just tearing out the fucking pumper. There it goes, my blood’s everywhere, I’m exposed, I’m dying. I’m dying and you’re the murderer.”

Roxy is trying to subdue nervous giggles. James sputters, letting a nervous laugh slip himself.

“Now, calm down, Dirk. What is all this about?” 

Like hell you’re going to calm down. “Your kid is what this is all about. Your kid and his big mouth, and you and _your_ big mouth.”

“What in the world does John have to do with this?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that he told Dave some things that he shouldn’t have known, and the only reason why he knows this shit is because _someone_ decided to tell their kid everything.” 

The line goes quiet again. 

“I’m so confused,” Roxy mumbles, words caught inside her martini glass. 

“Dirk, I…” James sighs, trying to gather the words. “I’m deeply sorry. I had no idea that John would discuss these things with Dave.”

“That’s not the point. Why the fuck did you talk to him about that shit at all?” 

“Well, John asked about my possible relationships with both you and Roxanne and I found no reason to lie to him.”

“And the parents thing came up _why?_ ”

“Well, naturally I know you because I knew your father.” 

“The plot thickens,” Roxy whispers. 

“Shut up, Rox. The kid finally talked to me for the first time in weeks, and now _I’m_ the one who has to be a bitch and start the silent treatment.”

James lights his pipe, the strike of the match carrying through the line. “Now, Dirk. You know you need to have this conversation with him.”

“Like hell I do.”

“I understand it’s uncomfortable and may bring up some things you would rather forget, however—”

“Oh my god, does Dave not know that he had parents?”

_Jesus Christ, strike me down with lightning._

“That’s correct, Roxanne.”

“Jeeeesus, Dirk! What the hell is wrong with you?”

You’re about to retort, but James cuts in, shutting you up before you can start.

“ _However_ , keeping this information from him is only beneficial to you. He doesn’t deserve to be kept in the dark about this.”

“Wait, if he doesn’t think he had parents, where does he think he came from?”

God, they’re waiting for you to respond. You run a hand through your hair, dropping your cap to the ground. You can’t tell if you’re sweating because of the heat bouncing off the roof or from this conversation. 

“I may or may not have told him that not all kids are born from parents.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Oh my god, Dirky.” Roxy is roaring with laughter, and the distant clatter tells you she’s dropped her glass. “Whoopsie—Dirk, please don’t tell me you told him that he was a test tube baby.”

“I definitely told him that he was a test tube baby.”

“But, Dirk—” James is completely unamused, trying to override Roxy’s laughter. “Even in-vitro fertilization requires for there to be a mother involved.”

“I skipped over that part.”

James is left in a stunned silence. Roxy stifles her giggles with another drink, quietly repeating “holy shit” under her breath.

“Egbert, I don’t think you really understand the weight of how much shit you’ve just put me in.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, you literally have no idea. I’m pretty sure Dave is going to pirouette straight into the deep end and never talk to me again if I tell him.”

“You should have been honest with him.”

“Look, alright, I get it, I’m a selfish prick, but at this point it would be stupid to tell him the truth. He’s lived almost his entire life believing me, and now that he’s back from god-knows what, I’m going to drop this shit bomb on him? Sounds like a terrible idea.” 

Roxy laughs, sputtering, “Do you really think he’s going to believe he’s never had parents _forever?_ I don’t think he’s an idiot like you, Dirk.”

You pause. “Have to make sure to keep him stupid, I guess.”

“This is absolutely absurd.” James puffs his pipe in what you can only guess is aggravation. “Dirk, you’re going to return to your brother and talk to him like a responsible adult. It must be awfully suspicious that you ran off after he asked questions and I’m sure the boy is depending on you to give him straight answers.”

You’re about to say that the kid hasn’t even asked you yet, but you catch yourself. You don’t need the two of them down your throat further for snooping through Dave’s stuff.

“Now I’ve said this in jest plenty of times before,” James continues, “but let me make myself abundantly clear: you are this child’s _parent_ , Dirk. Yes, you’re his brother, but as a child under your care he has no choice but to put his trust in you. He is depending on you to be honest and clear with him, _especially_ now that he’s returned and is back in your care.” 

You hold your breath as you pace, waiting for him to finish. 

“I know it’s going to be hard, but you need to take responsibility. You have a lot to turn around with him, and this is a subject that you absolutely need to speak with him about.” 

Both you and Roxy have gone completely silent. James lets out a heavy breath, detailing exactly how upset he is with you.

“Do I make myself clear, Dirk?”

You run your hand over your nose, your mouth, the stubble on your chin. Finally, you a mutter a stubborn “yeah” in defeat. 

James pulls from his pipe again briefly, calming himself. “It’s been a pleasure speaking to both of you, but I’m afraid I must be on my way. I’m sure we’ll be speaking again shortly.”

You and Roxy are hardly able to say goodbye before he hangs up. 

“Wow,” she says, “you really got him into dad-mode today.” 

“I shouldn’t have fucking said anything.” You sit at the edge of the roof, looking down at the busy street below. “I should have known he would pull this shit on me.”

“I mean, you kind of fucked up, Strider.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like, biiiig time.”

“Lay it on me, Rox, I can take it.”

“Don’t know if the kid will ever forgive you.”

“Hey, do you think if I jumped from the top of a thirty-story building it would kill me?”

“You? Nah.”

“Damn.”

She sips at her drink slowly. “But really, you can do this. You kind of have to. James is right, poor kid shouldn’t be kept in the dark.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Buuut,” she adds, and you can hear her smirking through her drawn-out words, “if he does disown you, maybe you can do your triple-backflip into Atlantic City and I’ll whisk you away to make you forget about the whole ordeal.”

“Are you promising to destroy my liver if this all goes downhill?”

“Would I promise anything else?”

You swing yourself back into a standing position, making your way back to the door to access the building. You slap your cap back on on the way. 

“Deal.”

\--- 

_Alright man, time to face the music. Time to destroy your kid’s life again._

_It’s okay. He’ll probably understand. He’s a chill dude. You’ve raised him to be a chill dude._

_You also raised him to believe that he didn’t have real parents._

_Holy shit you’re the worst._

You’ve been standing in front of your front door for the past ten minutes trying to urge yourself to go in. You know Dave is still up—you hear him pouring cereal, going back to his game, mumbling to himself. 

_He’s going to hate you._

_You could just turn around and run now. He won’t even question it._

_No you piece of shit, stop being a pussy and just go in and talk to the fucking kid._

You suck in a breath. 

_Just go._

When you open the door, Dave doesn’t even look back at you. He’s advanced to some other level in the game and is more engrossed in it than earlier. 

Thank Christ, you think. Maybe he won’t even ask. 

_No, dude. You still need to talk to him. Stop being a shit-baby. You’re being such a shit-baby right now._

You fill a glass with water and sip at it slowly, trying to settle your nerves. From behind, you can hear Dave’s game go silent, and you know he’s turned himself around on the futon staring holes into the back of your head. 

Shit. You thought you had more time. You try to urge him to go back to his game with your mind, but there’s nothing. Just a pause screen and your kid waiting for you.

You set the drink down. You turn to face him, wiping your face clean of any trace of nervousness. 

Then, you start. And so does he.

“Bro, I have a question—”

“—We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i finally cranked this one out. anyways it's almost 4am and i'm not sure about the quality BUT i was stuck on this chapter for a long time. 
> 
> bro's kind of a piece of shit. 
> 
> dad does a fatherly smackdown on bro.
> 
> roxy's drunk. (i'm still figuring out how to write her tbh.)
> 
> where's rose and jade you may ask?? B) B) B) to be continued


	8. Dave: Get the Talk

“We need to talk.”

You close your mouth tightly, heartbeat thrumming in your ears as you face Bro from the futon. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed tightly across his chest, looking in your direction. You don’t know if he even heard your question.

A drop of water slips down your temple, escaping your damp hair. You hope he doesn’t think it’s sweat. 

When you had gotten out of the shower, you returned to your computer only to see a string of blue harassing your half-naked self—

EB: dave you better ask him!

EB: or i’ll come down there and beat your ass!

EB: you know i’m a force to be reckoned with!

—etcetera et fucking cetera. But you did a lot of thinking under the guise of the steam and shampoo weighing your long hair down even longer. Like hell you were going to ask Bro about your supposed parents—you knew the truth, most of it. John smashed everyone’s genetics into goo, mixed some of that slime together to make more slime, bada-bing, bada-boom, he brought you into this cruel world by zapping you out of the cold glass womb of a test tube. 

Was it fucked up that Bro was genetically your dad? Sure, but the dude wasn’t totally bullshitting you—you _did_ come from a test tube after all. Not that you questioned it (much) as a kid, and not you really asked after a while, but you had started to wonder if he was lying to you. 

So you’re going to ask him if and how he knows John’s dad and Rose’s mom. Easy questions. Can be answered in short words so this whole ordeal is as painless as possible. So you can go back to your usual shtick of avoidance. 

That was the plan anyway. But now the two of you are staring so hard at each other in heavy silence that you’re not sure you can speak. His lips are drawn tight, his stance uncomfortably still and rigid. It takes you a moment to back down.

“What?” you ask.

His shoulders drop a little as he draws out a slow breath. Finally, he looks away from you and you drop your eyes to your hands clutching the back of the futon. You start to pick at a frayed thread. 

He’s quiet for a while. You wonder if maybe he forgot what he was going to say, or that he was going to say “never mind” and drop whatever he was going to bring up so you could go in for the kill instead. He paces the kitchen for a bit, tossing his cap onto the counter to tousle his hair in aggravation, until he reaches a hand up to grasp at the crawlspace’s drawstring and tugs the door down. You half-expect a cascade of dusty smuppets to come raining down on him, but only the unsettled dust falls into his hair. 

“Bro—”

He disappears without a word. 

Your quirked brow goes unnoticed, and you sigh as you slouch. You can hear a faint rustling overhead, some things being moved around (how much stuff was up there? you realize you’ve never once touched the crawlspace; you had always been too short to get inside), but otherwise Bro was being sneaky and stand-offish. In other words, he was being normal. 

_figures. his fucking act had to drop at some point, didn’t it?_

You turn in your seat to pay attention to the television. You pick up the controller, heaving a low sigh as you unpause your game. A part of you is glad that he dropped the whole “we need to talk” thing because, to be real, that shit never went down well, but you’re mostly annoyed. You just wanted to ask two lousy questions to fill your “I talked to Bro” quota and shove that shit in Egbert’s face. 

Was that so much to ask for?

You don’t hear Bro exit the crawlspace or appear behind you, so your shoulders jump when he reaches over to press a button on the controller in your hands. The pause screen flashes onto the screen. 

“When did you get so jumpy?” he mutters. But he’s not looking at you. You set the controller aside, swallowing slowly. 

He walks slowly over to his desk and grips the back of his chair to roll it closer to the futon. When he drops himself onto it, you notice some slips of paper in his one hand. You try to catch his gaze to question him quietly, but his head is turned to look out the window. 

One of his knees starts to jump subtly. 

Finally, you bite.

“What’s going on?” 

He tongues his cheek for a moment in thought, and you follow the round lump swim over his skin until he swivels the chair to toss the slips onto the desk. When he swivels back to face you, he crosses his arms over his chest, places an ankle on top of the opposite knee. Now you can feel his eyes on you. 

“Alright, kid,” he starts, “remember when you were real little and you asked me where you came from? Like if you had parents or anything?”

You settle back into the futon, relaxing your shoulders a little. 

“Uh, yeah. You told me I came from a test tube,” you say, cutting to the chase. “That I never had real parents and all that.” 

He dips his head once in a nod. 

“Yeah, well—”

“I mean,” you say, holding a hand up. “I already know that that was like, mostly true and shit.”

“What?” His eyebrows furrow, and you almost smile. It’s been a while since you’ve outsmarted him, gotten to the point while he thought you were miles off.

“Yeah, you know, I kind of already know you’re technically my dad? Like the whole ectobiology slime bullshit.” You wave your hands, wiggling your fingers to emphasize the slime. “John’s the expert though, I didn’t really know half the shit he was saying. But I got the gist that Rose is my sister, her mom’s _my_ mom, it’s like, all _Brady Bunch_ up in here.” 

He tries to cut in, but you wave him off. “Speaking of which, do you actually know Roxy? Sometimes I hear you say shit over the phone but—”

“Wh— Hold on.” 

He raises a hand to stop you. With some reluctance, you silent yourself, smirk toying on your lips. He pushes his shades to the crown of his scalp. The confusion in his eyes makes you want to laugh, but you bite it back. 

“Dave,” he says, “what the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

You roll your eyes. “Bro, you can’t keep the whole ‘I’m your father’ thing from me forever. Like I get it’s weird as fuck, but I’m mostly disappointed that you were holding out on that sweet _Star Wars_ moment with me. I’m a little offended.”

He emphasizes his raised hand again, telling you without words to shut up. His eyebrows are drawn tightly. 

“I’m not your dad, dude.” He’s incredulous, sitting up straighter. “Holy shit, I’m definitely not your dad. Where the hell did you get that from?” 

Something in your chest drops and hits the bottom of your stomach coldly. Any intention of a smirk falls from your face.

“From, you know,” you jut your thumb weakly over your shoulder, pointing at nothing in particular. You try to swallow down the lump forming in your throat. “The game.”

His confused stare turns irritated. You settle your hands back on your legs.

“What the hell is up with this game?” he asks, his voice low and quiet and irate. You keep your eyes on his, and you search for any slip in his façade. 

He opens his mouth again, ready to start, but he opts instead to breathe out a “fucking shit” as he sits back in his chair again. He leans back, a hand pawing at the bottom half of his face for a moment before he swivels the chair around again. 

You watch him take the slips back into his hands like cards. While his back is turned, you try to settle your nerves. But all you can think about is that he’s fucking with you again. 

_he was_ there. _he was in the fucking game. there’s no way he doesn’t know what i’m talking about._

He turns back to face you, but doesn’t look at you just yet. He’s looking at the slips in his hands. His knee bobs ever so slightly.

You’re about to call him out on his shit, but he starts instead, a hand raised to rub his eyes with thumb and index finger.

“Look, kid,” he says, sternness back in his voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but.” He looks at you, then looks away, tilting his head back. “You had parents,” he says to the ceiling. He takes a steadying breath before tilting his head back down to look at you. “We had parents. You know, real ones. You didn’t come from a goddamn test tube. Jesus Christ.”

You feel your eyebrows draw close, your mouth part.

He stands, and you’re realizing that the slips are photos, beginning to splotch and yellow in the back. He sits beside you, and you look away towards the kitchen. Whatever those photos hold, you don’t want to look. You grip the patch of couch beside your leg so tightly you feel your knuckles ache. 

He nudges you gently with an elbow. “Dave.” 

You refuse to respond, clenching your jaw.

He nudges you again. “Kid, look at me.”

You chew the inside of your cheek before biting back, “This is bullshit. I know you’re fucking with me.”

“No,” he says, drawing the vowel out slightly, “I was fucking with you when I told you that you came from a test tube like a goddamn alien. I don’t know why _this_ is more difficult to believe.”

You say nothing. You close your eyes, and when you open them your vision is still graced with the empty kitchen. Bro looms in your peripherals. 

“Okay,” he says, and he starts to backtrack, “I _guess_ I can see why this is probably unbelievable. You have no memories of them. You don’t even know what they look like. But Jesus, kid, _everyone_ has parents.” 

You stare at the fridge, rolling the inside corner of your lip between your teeth. 

The silence and stillness draws on for a little longer before Bro stands. He steps over to his desk, slapping the photos down near his computer before exiting the apartment. He exits so quickly and smoothly you hardly see him pass through your line of vision, hardly hear him open and close the door. He says nothing on the way out.

The air in the room remains tense. You try to relax your hands, but they’re balled so tightly that your fingers have gone stiff.

It takes a while for you to settle down enough to force yourself up and into your room. You kick the door closed for good measure, but it does nothing to quell your heated nerves. Pesterchum pings away from someone trying to get a hold of you—probably John, probably readying himself up to rub your nose in the mud—and you collapse onto your desk chair with an agitated grunt. 

EB: daaaaave? 

EB: wow, how long does it take for you guys to talk!

EB: i mean i guess you guys don’t usually do this sort of thing...

EB: by which i mean you both pretend that you don’t have emotions, so it takes a stupid long time to even bring anything up!

EB: oh my god, i’m going to be sitting here forever!

EB: dave you’re killing me.

EB: daaaaave.

EB: daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave.

You try to massage the ache in your eyebrows, but they won’t fucking relax. Your facial muscles are making a point to display just how pissed you are. 

TG: dude

TG: not to burst your bubble or anything

TG: but i really dont want to talk

EB: oh my god, my dad was right.

EB: you did have parents!

TG: fuck off 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] blocked ectoBiologist [EB] at 14:21 --

You push yourself away from the desk harshly, standing only to turn and drop yourself onto your bed with a huff. 

Of all the ways to fuck with you, this was pretty goddamn low. Low enough to have the fucking worms live above his head. Low enough that an archeologist would piss their pants over all the fossils your bro would be forced to mack on. Low enough to give Satan a sweet high-five before being sent to the ninth circle. 

He’s been avoiding talking about the game ever since you woke up. Every time you had off-handedly mentioned Karkat, or the meteor, or even the one time you had mistakenly mentioned Dirk, he made that face that screamed “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about” and “I don’t _want_ to know what the fuck you’re talking about” – which, granted, was a normal face for normal people, but on Bro it seemed out of place. Like he was trying too hard to cover it up. 

Your glance at your computer. The Pesterchum window is still open, and you’re sure John is begging and failing to bring you back. And honestly, you would talk to him, but you can’t stand the fact that he, the young man who brought your fresh baby ass into the world in the first place, is going along with Bro’s charade. 

Is it Fuck With Dave Strider Day? When did it become a national holiday? Are all the banks closed? 

Sighing, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed and drag yourself over to your desk again. You unblock John, and (thankfully) he doesn’t immediately bombard you.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 14:36 --

TG: alright man i have a question

TG: but dont interrupt me this is serious

EB: geez dude i didn’t think this was going to be such a touchy subject!

EB: you didn’t have to block me!

TG: i

TG: can you read egbert

EB: heheh, sorry.

TG: ok for real

TG: why do you keep insisting that i have parents like a 90 year old catholic grandma insisting that her goth granddaughter is the antichrist 

TG: like you know who my parents are

TG: you were there 

TG: john you were god and we were the lowly adam and eves ready to fuck shit up 

EB: ummm.

TG: its your fucking chumhandle dude 

EB: i mean...

EB: i think it was just a game, dave.

TG: christ

EB: think about it.

EB: the earth was literally destroyed in the game! and yet here we are. 

TG: thats total horseshit

TG: like round up the cows cowboy get them back in the pens theyre scaring the horses and making them shit all over the whole damn farm

EB: dave.

TG: oh no the pigs are escaping theyre dragging their shit-mud everywhere too its feces town up in here folks better hide in the bunkers get ready to shoot down some shit pigs

EB: that’s gross and you’re being evasive.

TG: and youre an idiot 

EB: hey!

TG: dude theres no way that shit was fake

EB: i’m just saying, we are on earth right now...

EB: the exact earth that was supposedly blown up.........

EB: with the people we thought died years ago magically in our homes, gasp! 

EB: should i call the police on my dad, dave? is my dad really just some hologram intruder? 

TG: alright alright shut your oxygen hole dude

EB: just, i don’t know, entertain the fact that maybe everything that happened to us in the game didn’t really happen? like it was a crazy virtual reality trip?

TG: so what the trolls and our kid ancestors just don’t exist??? 

EB: ...i don’t think so, dave.

EB: i’ve tried contacting karkat and roxy and some of the others already.

EB: pesterchum’s not even acknowledging their chumhandles! 

TG: youre shitting me right

EB: have you tried?

You lean back and sigh. Looking at your friends list makes your stomach turn. The short list of three names used to be a few chumhandles longer.

TG: i dont want to talk about this anymore

EB: you brought it up!

TG: yeah i know but theres this trick that i know of 

TG: its called drawing the line

EB: uuugh, fine. 

TG: besides

TG: if all of that really was just a game or whatever

TG: where the fuck were we for three years

TG: why did we land back in our beds in comas 

EB: i have no idea. 

EB: who knows, maybe we’ll get answers soon?

TG: maybe 

TG: this is shitty dude

TG: like prime packaged shit sent directly from the finest shit factory in the world shitty 

EB: i know.

EB: if it really was just a game...

EB: we went through a lot for no real reason.

TG: yeah

TG: goddamn this blows

EB: yeah...

EB: have you talked to your bro yet? because it reeeeally sounds like you didn’t.

TG: nah not yet dude

TG: had some stuff come up

EB: well, i still fully expect that tome telling the tales of how much of an idiot you are when you come back!

TG: yeah yeah

TG: i still think the guy is trying to fuck with me but whatever

EB: if you need a credible source for you having parents, my dad’s like the jstor for all your researching needs. 

TG: the what

TG: dude i still doubt that they even know each other slow down

EB: they do! my dad is a highly credible source dave :B

TG: get that emoticon out of my face

TG: ill talk to you later

EB: tell me what their names are when you get back! 

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 14:59 --

You don’t bother moving to get up. Not only are you uneager to talk to Bro, but as far as you know, he’s still AWOL. 

There’s no real purpose in moving from your room until your stomach begins to growl some horrible rhymes, and so you make a slow trek to the kitchen. It still doesn’t sit firmly in you that there’s food in the cabinets and fridge, and for a while you thought that Bro was testing you—that he’d dumped laxatives in the juice or otherwise poisoned the food, punishment for trusting him—but after watching him eat and after experiencing no illness of your own, you figure he dropped the act over the years. 

Still, you’re wary, and you settle for a Hot Pocket. The plastic seal lends some comfort. 

You turn to direct yourself back to your room, but instead you find yourself stopping near Bro’s desk. The photos are still face-down, displaying only the yellow splotches of age and smeared ink on the back. 

You really don’t want to look at the fucking things.

And yet, you find yourself sinking into his chair, Hot Pocket on your lap, staring at them anyway. You drag them a little closer to you with clean fingertips, if only because you’re curious of the ink in the corners. 

They’re just a pile of faded numbers, dates surrounded by a couple of stars or hearts. 

11/5/’96, 7/19/’97, 3/7/’96. 

None of the ways the numbers were written gave you any indication that your bro had written them. His numbers looked ugly as sin, rushed because he didn’t care if they were readable or not; these were too neat, kind of screamed “I’m a mom who wants to take up scrapbooking!” 

You sit back and eat your food slowly. 

_there’s nothing to be worried about. if he’s fucking with me these will just be some stock photos or something. maybe he bribed a family on the street or stalked some moms at the park. or maybe they’re just pictures of him in that “worlds #1 mom” shirt he has._

After wiping the grease from your fingertips off on your jeans, you draw in a breath and flip the photos over. 

You skim your eyes hurriedly over them, over the faces, and you don’t feel any pangs of recognition. Not at first. The closer you look at the woman in the middle photo, smiling down at some bundle of blue in her arms, the more you can see some of your brother’s features. But she’s too soft to be him, and you nervously admit that it’s not Bro in disguise. 

Which means nothing, because some strangers look like identical twins. 

But you’ll admit their eyes and nose are the same. 

In another picture there’s the woman, platinum blonde hair cropped to her chin, holding a baby to her hip while some dude looms close to her, a hand on her shoulder as they stand in front of an ocean. He smiles easily at the camera while the woman tries to do the same, but one cheek is being squished by the baby’s hand feeling up her face. 

The man has dirty blond hair. It could be brown. He smiles in the way you’ve seen your brother smile sometimes, kind of quiet, kind of forced. The top half of his face is covered by sunglasses.

The baby looks uninterested in the camera, trying only to get its mom’s attention. It squints at the sunlight boring over the beach, and the shock of blonde hair lays flat and wet against its head.

Before you can get to the last picture, you feel Bro leaning his arms onto the back of the desk chair. It makes you tilt back a little, shoulders jumping again. 

“Jesus, Bro, you don’t have to walk into your own place like you’re going to rob it—”

“You were a little fuck in this one,” he says, flicking the beach photo with his fingernail. “Kept complaining when mom would look away for two seconds.” 

You roll your eyes. When you look back at the photo, you stare at the baby. It looks like any other baby you’ve seen.

“That so.”

“Yeah.” He picks up the photo, standing back from the chair to instead come around to crouch at your side. “You kept throwing your shades off and then you’d cry because your eyes hurt.”

“Bullshit. I wouldn’t do that. The shades were probably rad as hell.”

“Babies don’t like when there’s stuff on their face, dude.”

You begin to retort, to ask “how the hell would you know?”, but he gives you a look that turns you down. 

He slips the photo onto the desk again and takes the one that you hadn’t really looked at yet. You look back at the beach photo.

“What beach is this?” you try. In all your years in Texas, the closest you had been to a large body of water was when you went to the Tabbs Bay, but you had never seen the ocean. 

He only shrugs, not paying much mind. “Probably Sunset State. I don’t think we ever went to any other ones.”

“Where’s that?”

As he sets the photo back onto the desk, he takes the other one of just the woman to glance at before setting it back. “Watsonville.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“South of San Jose, kid.”

You roll your eyes again, twisting in the chair to face him. “Now I know you’re bullshitting me.”

“Nah. We lived in California until you were like, four or five.” He stands, looming over you and the pictures for another moment before turning to go into the kitchen.

You stare at his back as he rifles through the fridge. You pause, taking a second to chew the inside of your lip to think. 

“Are you being serious?” you finally ask. 

He turns around to face you, water bottle in hand. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Like you would even grace that with a real answer. You twist the chair so you’re facing him fully. 

“Why didn’t you ever, you know, tell me? Did it go against your ninja code to tell the truth or what?”

“It wasn’t important, dude.” He shrugs, taking a swig from the bottle. “You had other stuff to focus on.”

“You told me I was a test tube baby.”

“And you totally believed me up until this moment. Besides, it never bothered you before.”

“That’s,” you start, and you look away with an exasperated sigh. This is going on for way longer than you want. You look down at the photos again, tapping a finger against one. “Whatever. What happened to them, then?”

He sighs this time, capping the water bottle. “Well, dad kicked it when you were really little. Cardiac arrest.” 

“Huh. And what about her?” 

He slips his shades to the top of his head again. You realize he’s making a point not to look at you, focusing more on his water. 

“No fuckin’ clue what happened to mom, to be honest.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She, well. I dunno kid.” He starts to wave a hand around, trying to find the right words. “Long story short, she went out one day and never came back.”

You feel an eyebrow rise. “She just walked out?”

“Not like that, Jesus. She was probably kidnapped.” He swallows thickly, trying to shrug it off again. “Feds never found her, so she’s been dead for a while as far as they’re concerned.”

You cross your arms tightly over your chest. 

“What?” he asks, finally looking at you.

“You’re not in any of these pictures. Pretty suspicious.”

He rolls his eyes. “I was the one taking the pictures, genius.”

“Maybe you should cough up some pictures with you in them.”

He looks askance, as if weighing options. You continue to stare him down. 

“I dunno man, those pictures are some classified shit.” He exhales shortly and lets his shoulders drop slightly. “But you’re unconvinced as hell, so.”

After some deliberation, he jumps back up into the crawlspace, and soon enough he’s hopping back down and holding out two more photos. He reluctantly lets you take them.

You sit back comfortably in his desk chair, holding up the photos in front of you. Immediately, your eyebrows raise high above your shades and Bro turns away, trying to make himself look busy.

“No fucking way,” you mutter, stifling a laugh. 

“Say anything and you’re dead.”

“Bro, you look like Kurt Cobain tried to come back from the dead. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ reincarnate.”

He’s hardly recognizable, but his face hasn’t changed much in fifteen years. In one, titled 4/21/’97, he holds the baby (you—you are the baby, the baby is you) standing on his thighs, hands gripping you under your pits. You look consumed with shoving something into your mouth while he peers at you, messy chin-length hair falling around his cheeks, some solid bruising going on under his eyes. A band t-shirt you don’t recognize hides underneath a ragged flannel.

The other picture isn’t much different in terms of Grunge McFuck here. He sits cross-legged on the floor, back against a couch with you in his lap, leaning into his chest. He’s reading something to you, but the glare obscures the cover. On the couch behind him, the man in the beach picture is sprawled out, sleeping. Bro wears an ugly orange sweater, wayfarer shades clipped over the collar. 

Bro gets restless as you look at the photos, and you hear him on the phone ordering takeout. You place the pictures with the others on the desk and look at them together, feeling an uncomfortable mix of emotions brewing in your chest. Before you’re able to sort them out, Bro’s looming near you again, leaning his weight onto his left hip. 

“I hope you burned these images in your mind, because you’re not seeing them again.” He plucks the two photos into his hands as you look up at him. 

“What, are you getting rid of them?” you ask.

“Nah, they’re too precious. Just gonna hide them somewhere.” He shoves them into his back pocket, keeping his eyes steady on yours. “Not letting myself be vulnerable to blackmail.”

You shrug, but direct your attention to the three pictures again. The one you hadn’t paid much mind to earlier is of the man holding your baby hands as you try to stand on your feet.

“So, uh.” He shifts his weight a little, crossing his arms. “I know this whole, you know, parents thing is kind of fucked up. But, you know.” 

You drum your fingers gently against the desk. “What were their names?”

He tells you. You nod a little. 

The room turns quiet again. He busies himself with his phone, the television, leaving you with your thoughts. Mostly, you’re trying to piece together the ways that he devised this plan—which family he bribed, which friends he got together to set this up, how long he had been waiting to set the plan into motion. If you were to look up the names he told you, would you find obituaries, news articles? Would he have planted them there? You’re not sure how far his circle of party tricks goes, but you wouldn’t put it past him to be able to fake a birth certificate.

You look back at him. He sits on the futon, shades poised over his eyes again, keeping his eyes ahead. Acting like nothing had happened. Trying to calm his bobbing knee.

He’s never been so fidgety before, not that you can remember—he always seemed like a wall, in both face and stature, but lately he’s been letting some anxious habits slip. Running his hands through his hair all the time, constantly shifting his legs like he needs a heavy dose of Ritalin. You’ve caught him chewing on his right index fingernail a couple of times. Add a heaping cupful of suddenly being concerned about you and put the mixer on high. 

It makes you wildly uncomfortable. If you let your guard down, will he go back to normal? Is this the new normal? 

You swivel the chair around fully to face him. 

“I had a question before you, you know, dropped this parental mess on me like an orphan in the foster care system.”

“Shoot.”

“John can’t get it out of his thick skull that you and his dad know each other and won’t stop harassing me about it.”

“What, Egbert?”

“The one and only.”

“Yeah, I know his dad.” He shifts one leg to rest his ankle on the opposite knee. “Unfortunately.” 

You scoff. “How?”

He looks back at you for a brief moment before looking down at his phone. “Not important.”

“Oh, come on, Bro.” 

“Nah.” He stands then, shifting his phone to his ear as he goes to the door. He says a few things before hanging up, and before leaving to get whatever food he had ordered, he looks at you. “But they’re a harassing fuckin’ bunch, aren’t they?”

He slips out before you can respond. 

\--

TG: so thats the supposed tale

TG: im not saying that hes telling a lick of truth because i cant trust the dude as far as i can throw him

TG: but i dunno

TG: i guess ill think about it 

EB: heheheh

EB: i told you!

TG: no you didnt

EB: i was right and you were wrong dave.

TG: i still think its a steaming pot of smelly horse dong and there are so many ways this guy could have twisted it to bona fide fuck me up and sideways 

TG: so excuse me for being on my toes about the whole thing

EB: whatever! i’m just saying my dad has no reason to mess with you. 

EB: so i don’t think it’s any coincidence that their stories match up. 

TG: egbert

EB: strider.

TG: i said ill think about it

EB: fiiiiine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm mostly using this chapter as a vessel to channel my "bro as a grungy 90s teen" au. 
> 
> don't fret too much over the parents. it's only another thing to add on top of the non-canon pile. also i never mentioned it, but bro is about 21 in the pictures. i pin him as 20 years older than dave. 
> 
> anyways. i'm never writing a pesterlog ever again. the coding for them is so tedious. 
> 
> if you wanna hmu do it here: spacepuck.tumblr.com


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